Background: Providing care for preterm, neonates with high risk and neonates with surgical causes are challenging.
Aim of the work: To provide an insight on types of surgical and medical problems encountered in our NICU and to determine the mortality of neonates with surgical conditions admitted to our NICU and comparing them with neonates with medical conditions.
Methods: A retrospective analytical study conducted at NICU, Minia university children hospital from January 2021 to June 2023. Neonates either with non-surgical or surgical causes were included. All data of the included neonates were collected including detailed history and laboratory investigations. They were classified into two groups: non-surgical causes and surgical causes.
Results: The results revealed 1862 neonates were admitted, 1719 cases were admitted due to non-surgical causes, 306 of them died while 1413 lived and 143 cases were admitted due to surgical causes, 38 of them died while 105 lived. The gestational age, birth weight, hemoglobin, platelets count, total bilirubin, direct bilirubin and indirect bilirubin were significantly decreased in neonates who died (P-value 0.0001, 0.001, 0.002, 0.0001, 0.0001, 0.0001, 0.0001 respectively), but, they  had statistically significant increase regarding the hospital stay and blood component transfusion (P-value 0.0001 for all). The mean age and hospital stay were higher in neonates with surgical conditions and had statistically significant difference (P-value 0.0001 for both), the gestational age had statistically significant difference (P-value 0.001) with more preterm neonates in cases without surgery, platelets count was lower in neonates with medical conditions (P-value 0.01), Neonates with surgical conditions had higher significant blood component requirements than neonates with medical conditions.
Conclusion: The most important factors reflected on the neonatal outcome in this study are gestational age, birth weight and the hospital stay.