Letter to the Editor Comment on: Arnold Schwarzenegger or Danny DeVito? The fate of twins with necrotizing enterocolitis in the NICU

jpedsurg.org

We read with great interest the article by Hellmann et al. titled "Arnold Schwarzenegger or Danny DeVito? The fate of twins with necrotizing enterocolitis in the NICU" [1]. In this comprehensive study, which is a major source in the literature, data from infants admitted to neonatal intensive care units between 2017 and 2023 were collected, and multiple pregnancies were identified in 8158 (3.2%) of 253,574 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) infants. Although the probability of developing necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) was found to be lower in multiple pregnancies compared to single births, if NEC develops in one infant in a set, the probability of the second sibling developing NEC was found to be higher than in the general NICU population (16.4% vs 2.6%, p < 0.01) [1].

jpedsurg.org shows its articles on its own site.

Read the article on jpedsurg.org ↗

Article · Mar 2026 · 1 min read

In brief

This letter discusses a large study examining necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) risk in twins and multiples admitted to NICUs. While multiple pregnancies show lower overall NEC rates than singletons, when one twin develops NEC, the sibling's risk increases significantly to 16.4% versus 2.6% in the general NICU population.

Multiple pregnancy infants have lower overall NEC risk compared to singletons in NICU populations.
If one twin develops NEC, the co-twin has 16.4% risk vs 2.6% in general NICU population (6× higher).
Study analyzed 253,574 NICU admissions (2017-2023); 3.2% were from multiple pregnancies.
Clinicians should heighten NEC surveillance in the unaffected twin when one sibling is diagnosed.
Shared intrauterine/postnatal factors may explain concordant NEC risk in twin pairs.

Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.

Read it at the source ↗