1 Jan 2018Case Report
Necrotizing fasciitis. Possible profiles of professional liability with reference to two cases
Gian Marella 1Enrico Dominicis 2Giovanni Paliani 2Giuseppe Santeusanio 1Luigi Marsella 3Saverio Potenza 3
Affiliations
Article Info
1 Università degli Studi di Roma “Toir Vergata”, Roma, Italy; Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale e Chirurgia,
2 Università degli Studi di Roma “Toir Vergata”, Roma, Italy; Sezione di Medicina Legale
3 Università degli Studi di Roma “Toir Vergata”, Roma, Italy; Dipartimento di Biomedicina e Prevenzione
Ann. Ital. Chir., 2018, 89(1), 70-74;
Published: 1 Jan 2018
Copyright © 2018 Annali Italiani di Chirurgia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Necrotizing fasciitis is one of the most dangerous complication of an abscess and it is still a disease with a high mor- tality. In this work, we decided to consider two cases: the first one concerns a male subject, aged 66, deceased because of a fatal necrotizing fasciitis associated to a cervical descending mediastinitis, which evolved from a primary periton- sillar abscess; the second is about a 50-year-old woman with a perineal abscess, then evolved into necrotizing fasciitis associated to a fatal septis shock. After a systematic consideration of necrotizing fasciitis as pathology and an analysis of the possible related risks to a diagnostic or therapeutic delay, we analyzed the particular history of both cases to under- line the possible critical issues in professional behavior of the medical staff intervened.
Keywords
- Abscess
- Medical malpractice
- Mortality
- Necrotizing fasciitis
- Professional liability