الفهرس 
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Abstract
Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is one of the most serious and life threatening conditions in the neonatal period. NEC is considered a major cause of high morbidity and mortality especially in premature infants(Kafetzis, 2003).
Till now, the pathogenesis of NEC is definitely unknown. However, It is believed to be multifactorial in nature(Lin and stoll, 2006). Ischaemia and exaggerated inflammatory response of the intestinal villi to hypoxia, early enteral feeding with artificial milk formula in addition to abnormal bacterial colonization of the neonatal GIT are believed to play the main role in development of the disease. The most important risk factor at all is prematurity (Crissinger, 2008, Pietz et al., 2007, Lin and stoll, 2006 and Claud and Walker, 2008).
As NEC may have a rapidly progressive course with catastrophic endings, its diagnosis at the earliest point is life saving issue (Gordon, 2007).Many researches all over the world were done to obtain a predictive marker for early detection of NEC as plasma arginine, glutamine, and citrulline level (Wu et al., 2009).
Citrulline is a natural non-essential amino acid. It is believed to be an intermediate of urea cycle. Most of the plasma citrulline is derived from glutamine conversion in the enterocytes as previously described. A small amount of citrulline is synthesized in the liver but its catabolism occurs in situ (Crenn et al., 2000). So that plasma citrulline level could be a reliable marker of gut function (Bailly et al., 2009).