ÖZGEN IŞIK, MURAT ŞEN, DENİZ SIĞIRLI, TUNCAY YILMAZLAR
Turkish Journal of Colorectal Disease - 2023;33(4):103-109
Aim: The nature and rarity of Fournier’s gangrene (FG) limit the conducting of clinical studies with large patient populations. The present study aims to determine FG risk factors and predictors of mortality among the Turkish population using published data. Method: A literature review was conducted via PubMed Central® using the keywords “FG” and “Turkey,” revealing 95 articles published between January 2000 and December 2020. Studies including <20 patients and consecutive studies by the same author were excluded from the review. Finally, a total of 41 studies were included, and the respective correlations between mortality and the other variables were analyzed. Results: A total of 1,919 patients were reported in the 41 studies; the majority of the patients were men (83.11%), with a median age of 55 years, and the median mortality rate was 17.39%. A total of 16 studies were published between 2000 and 2010 (the first decade). The mortality rate was lower in the studies published between 2010 and 2020 (second decade) than in the first-decade studies (14.72%±7.1 vs. 22.46%±11.62; p=0.011). The cutaneous origin and mortality (r=-0.615; p=0.033) were negatively correlated, and chronic renal failure (r=0.705; p=0.005) and fecal diversion (r=0.371; p=0.037) were positively correlated. The rate of women was higher in the high-mortality group than in the low-mortality group (27.25% vs. 4.35%; p=0.034). Conclusion: The features of patients with FG in the Turkish population are comparable with the literature data. Proper comorbidity assessment, the female gender, origin of the disease, and avoidance of unnecessary fecal diversion may have an impact on mortality.
