Postoperative gas gangrene in abdomen and in extremity. A comparison in nine cases of clostridial myonecrosis.
Gas gangrene occurred after surgery on an extremity, as a rule highly arteriosclerotic, in 6 patients and after abdominal operations in 3 patients during an 18-month period in 1978-79. The signs of toxemia after abdominal surgery preceded the signs of wound infection by one or two days and the diagnosis in the interval was extremely difficult. In its abdominal form the gas gangrene had such a fulminant course that, when the diagnosis had been established, the outcome was uninfluenced by prompt administration of shock therapy, surgical debridement and antibiotics. All 3 patients died.
D000005:Abdomen / Q000601:surgery; D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D001161:Arteriosclerosis / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D005738:Gas Gangrene / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D007866:Leg / Q000601:surgery; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013530:Surgical Wound Infection / Q000209:etiology*