Mortality of necrotizing enterocolitis expressed by birth weight categories.

Purpose: Low birth weight is the most important risk factor for developing necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). We aimed to establish birth weight-based benchmarks for in-hospital mortality in neonates with NEC.

Methods: Five hundred eleven centers belonging to the Vermont Oxford Network prospectively evaluated 71,808 neonates with birth weight of 501 to 1500 g between January 2005 and December 2006.