Aim:
The nature and rarity of Fournier’s gangrene (FG) limit conducting clinical studies with large patient population.We aimed to determine risk factors,predictors of mortality of FG among the Turkish population using published data.
Method:
A literature review was conducted via PubMed Central using keywords “FG”and“Turkey” revealing 95 articles between January 2000 and December 2020. Studies including less than 20 patients,consecutive studies of the same author were excluded.In total,41 studies were included.The correlation between mortality and the other variables were analyzed.
Results:
There were 1919 patients reported in 41 studies.Majority of the patients were male(83.11%) with a median age of 55.Median mortality was 17.39%. Sixteen studies were published between 2000 and 2010(first decade). Mortality rate was lower in the studies published between 2010 and 2020(14.72%± 7.1vs.22.46%±11.62,p= 0.011).Cutaneous origin was negatively correlated with mortality (r= -0.615,p=0.033) while chronic renal failure(r= 0.705,p=0.005) and fecal diversion (r=0.371,p= 0.037) were positively correlated.The rate of females in high mortality group was higher than low mortality group (27.25%vs.4.35% p=0.034)
Conclusion:
Features of the FG patients in Turkish population are comparable to the literature data. Avoiding unnecessary fecal diversion, proper assessment of comorbidities,female gender and origin of the disease may have impact on the mortality.
Keywords: Fecal diversion, Fournier’s gangrene, mortality, renal failure, Turkey