Global outcomes and lessons learned in the management of Fournier's gangrene from high-volume centres: findings from a literature review over the last two decades.

INTRODUCTION

Fournier's Gangrene (FG) carries a high mortality and morbidity with underreported short and long-term outcomes. Our aim was to perform a review of the recent literature to evaluate the short and long-term outcomes in patients with FG in the acute setting from large-scale studies.

METHODS

A PubMed search was performed between January 2000 and December 2021 for studies reporting on patients with FG. Exclusion criteria included small samples (n < 100), review articles and animal studies. Primary outcomes of interest were mortality, number of operative episodes for surgical debridement and admission to intensive care unit (ICU). Other outcomes assessed included rate of faecal and urinary diversion, orchidectomy rate, penectomy rate and length of hospital stay.

RESULTS

From a total of 1182 studies, 18 were eligible for inclusion and included in this review. In total, data were analysed from 13,903 FG patients. Mean inpatient mortality rate was 7.3% (range 4.7-40.4%). Mean number of surgical debridement operations performed was 1.8 (range 1.5-4.2). On average, 6.8% (range 3.6-50.5%) and 7% (range 1.2-53.2%) underwent faecal and urinary diversions, respectively. Mean rate of orchidectomy was 5.6%, with rate of penectomy being lower at 0.2%. The mean length of hospital stay was 18.5 days (range 13.0-26.6). On average, 17.5% (range 10.1%-67.5%) required ICU admission for at least a single-system support.

CONCLUSION

Our review from the past twenty years of literature suggests that the mortality for FG, whilst still high, has fallen compared to previous years. Whilst inpatient metrics are well-covered in the literature there is a lack of large-scale studies detailing long-term patient outcomes.