DOI: 10.36347/sasjm.2023.v09i02.001

Pages: 60-65

Introduction: necrotizing fasciitis (FN) is a medico-surgical emergency that often involves the vital prognosis. Despite its rarity in children, necrotizing fasciitis is complicated by septic shock in 74 cases out of 100 and it is a serious infection, fatal in about 30% of cases. The aim of this work was to study the risk factors for necrotizing fasciitis in children. Methodology: This was a case-control study interesting children aged 0-15 years seen in dermatological consultation and included in accordance with the objectives of the study for a given period from January 1, 2020 to December 30, 2021. Diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis was based on clinical and histological. Results: During the study period, 2501 children were seen in dermatological consultation, of which 20 had necrotizing fasciitis, ie a hospital frequency of 0.80%. These twenty cases of necrotizing fasciitis were matched with 20 controls by age, sex, hospital, date of admission. The age of children with necrotizing fasciitis ranged between 3 and 15 years, and the average age was 11.7 years. Preschool children (3-5 years old) accounted for 5%, school-age children (6-10 years old) accounted for 25% and adolescents accounted for 70%. The cases were divided into 11 boys (55%) and 9 girls (45%), the sex ratio was 1.22. The average duration of evolution of necrotizing fasciitis in children was 7.6 days with extremes ranging from 3 to 12 days. Conclusion: Many factors in our study were associated with the occurrence of necrotizing fasciitis in children, led by NSAIDs, traditional medications and traumatic wounds. In view of these results obtained in our study carried out under unfavorable conditions, it is necessary that cohort studies be carried out in order to confirm our results.