Gastroschisis: factors affecting prognosis.

Over a ten-year period 21 children with gastroschisis were treated either with a direct full-layer closure or with a silastic sac closure of the abdominal wall defect. No mortality or longterm morbidity resulted from either form of therapy in the group of patients that had no anatomical interruption of the gastro-intestinal tract. Silastic sac closure did, however, result in a higher incidence of septicemia. In the group of patients that presented with an anatomical interruption of the G.I. tract, considerable mortality and morbidity resulted. The outcome in these patients was determined by the associated bowel lesion rather than by the gastroschisis as such.