Impact of Early Surgical Intervention of Plastic Surgeons on the Prognosis of Necrotizing Soft Tissue Infection

Background Necrotizing soft tissue infection (NSTI) is a rare, severe bacterial infection that causes rapidly progressive soft tissue necrosis from the skin to the muscle. The gold standard for treating NSTI is a prompt diagnosis, early surgical debridement of necrotic tissue, and antimicrobial therapy. This study investigated the relationship between the involvement of plastic surgeons and the clinical course of NSTI cases treated at Yokosuka General Hospital Uwamachi. Methodology This study involved 28 patients with NSTI who were treated at Yokosuka General Hospital Uwamachi. Patient background, outcomes (mortality and amputation), and days to the first surgery were compared in the early and nonearly plastic surgery intervention groups. Moreover, the duration of treatment was also compared in surviving patients. Differences between the two groups were analyzed using Fisher’s direct probability test, Mann-Whitney U test was used for comparison of continuous variables between the two groups, and Spearman’s rank correlation analysis was used for the bivariate correlation coefficient. The significance level was set at <5%. Results There were eight and 20 patients in the early and nonearly plastic surgery intervention groups (14 in later intervention and six in nonintervention), respectively. A difference in the median number of days to the first surgery between the early (zero days) and the nonearly (two days) intervention groups was significant (p = 0.002). In the survival groups, the median treatment duration in the early (n = 8) and nonearly (n = 13) intervention groups was 44 and 82 days, respectively, which was significantly shorter in the early intervention group (p = 0.003). Conclusions The number of days until the first surgery and the length of the treatment period were significantly shorter in the early plastic surgery intervention group than in the nonearly intervention group.