Objective: Fournier’s gangrene is necrotizing fasciitis with polymicrobial infection involving the scrotum, perineum and perianal region, sometimes spreading to the abdomen and chest with a high mortality. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether diabetes mellitus (DM) has an effect on Fournier’s gangrene mortality, length of hospital stay and laboratory values.
Methods: The patient files with a history of hospitalization in University of Health Sciences Turkey, Prof. Dr. Cemil Taşcıoğlu City Hospital were used in the study. The epicrisis of 250 patients who were diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis and gangrene between January 2014 and July 2021 were read and 50 patients who had Fournier’s gangrene were identified from epicrisis. Demographic analyzes, physical examination and laboratory findings of the identified patients, and the drugs they used were reviewed retrospectively.
Results: DM was detected in 28 (56%) of 50 patients hospitalized with the diagnosis of Fournier’s gangrene in the study. The patients were divided into 2 groups as those with and without diabetes mellitus. No statistically significant differences were detected between the discharge and death distributions of the diabetic and non-diabetic groups (p=0.371). The length of hospital stay was statistically significantly higher in the diabetic group than in the non-diabetic group (p=0.017).
Conclusion: Diabates mellitus has an important place among the risk factors for Fournier’s gangrene disease and it was detected in more than half of the patients in the present study. It was found that diabetes prolonged the hospitalization period of patients who had Fournier’s gangrene, but had no effect on mortality.