Necrotizing Fasciitis

Necrotizing fasciitis, sometimes called flesh-eating disease, is a severe bacterial infection that destroys the body's soft tissue by way of toxins the bacteria release, rather than the bacteria consuming tissue directly as the popular name suggests. It usually enters through a break in the skin such as a cut or burn and progresses rapidly, at first resembling cellulitis before advancing to red, purple, or black discoloration of the skin, severe pain, swelling, fever, blistering, and a crackling sensation from gas trapped in the tissue. Risk factors include a weakened immune system from diabetes or cancer, obesity, alcoholism, intravenous drug use, and peripheral artery disease, though it occasionally strikes healthy people with no clear trigger. It is rare, affecting about four people per million per year in the United States, occurring more often in older adults and equally in both sexes. It is treated as a surgical emergency requiring prompt removal of the infected tissue along with antibiotics, and even with high-quality care the risk of death remains between twenty-five and thirty-five percent, rising toward total without treatment.