MESENTERIC vascular occlusion, stated to occur once in 1,000 surgical admissions in adults,1 is an extremely rare condition in children.2,3 In a review of 14 childhood cases of mesenteric vascular occlusion, plus five of their own cases, Ratner and Swenson3 observed that approximately one third of the occlusions was arterial, one third was venous, and one third was a combination of the two entities.
The first recorded case of thrombosis of the mesenteric artery in the newborn infant was found by Klob in 1859.4 In a review of arterial thrombosis and embolism in newborn infants in 1945, Gross5 found 2 cases of mesenteric artery thrombosis, and since 1945 only 11 cases of thrombosis or embolism of the mesenteric artery in newborn infants have been added to the literature.6-14 A recent clinical pathological conference by Oppenheimer and Avery 14 suggests that more cases of