Background: necrotizing enterocolitis is a serious condition that affects mostly preterm infants, with high mortality rate. Aim: to estimate the influence of potentially contributing factors of this multifactorial disease. Methods: the study group included 51 necrotizing enterocolitis infants who were less than 37 week gestation who were hospitalized in NICU during a five year period. The control group consisted of 71 patients with approximately the same gestational age and birth weight. Average gestational age in the study group was 30.2 weeks (SD 3.7), average birth weight 1502g (SD 781.5). Average postnatal age in the time of the presenting NEC was 18.2 days (SD 12.8). Results: Logistic regression estimates the influence of risk factors, which in our study related to the treatment of preterm infants on the likelihood of NEC development. Our regression model consisted of seven independent variables (nosocomial infections, mechanical ventilation, nasal continuous positive pressure, morphine, inotropes, blood transfusions, and H2 blockers), which were shown to have a statistically significant impact, X2 (7, n=1222) = 49.522, p<0.0001; two independent variables (nosocomial infection and H2 blockers use) were statistically significant. Preterm infants with nosocomial infection had a three times greater chance of developing NEC, and infants who received H2 blockers had a 1.5 higher risk. Conclusions: Underlying pathology of very low birth weight infants and their treatment in NICU contribute to NEC development. Identifying risk factors can be crucial for the early diagnosis and outcome of disease. Awareness of risk factors should influence changes in practice to reduce the risk of NEC.

Haemodialysis is a fast and efficient meth-od for removing toxins from the body in a straightforward manner. This has been a regular practice at the Paediatric Clinic in Sarajevo, Department of Paediatric In-tensive Therapy since January 2009. By December 2014 there were 34 patients treated by haemodialysis, who had un-dergone 253 haemodialyses in total. There were 18 (52.9%) primary nephrologic pa-tients, while 16 (41.05%) were patients whose renal failure was caused by other etiology. The main objective of this paper is to present the most common conditions in childhood that require haemodialysis in its treatment. The Department of Paediat-ric Intensive Therapy for this period had hospitalized 1,226 patients in total. Out of this number 2.77% of patients required the application of haemodialysis in their treat-ment. The results show that the most common renal causes to perform haemodialysis are: haemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), chronic renal failure, nephrotic syndrome and congenital bilateral nephrolithiasis. For the others, the most common non-renal causes are multiple organ dysfunc-tion syndrome (MODS) that occurs as a result of cardiac insufficiency, hepatic in-sufficiency or after surgeries, as well as in hemato-oncologic diseases.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the association between the number of nosocomial infections prior to necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) diagnosis as well as to evaluated how it contributed to development of NEC in premature infants. Material and methods: The study included 51 preterm infants diagnosed with NEC and 71 preterm infants without NEC hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of Clinical Center University of Sarajevo. We evaluated the correlation of the number of nosocomial infections prior to NEC diagnosis with the development of NEC. Results: There was a statistically significant association of the number of nosocomial infections prior NEC diagnosis with the development of NEC (odds ratio, 3.32; 95% confidence interval, 1.09-10.01). Conclusion: Increased number of nosocomial infections prior to NEC diagnosis is associated with increased risk of necrotizing enterocolitis.