Acute appendicitis complicated by necrotizing fasciitis in a teenager

Challenges in strategies for Amyand hernia in children: literature review with clinical illustrations

Introduction

Amyand hernia (AH) is a rare disease, so there are no standard strategies and there are many different aspects at each stage of its management. Based on our own experience, we encountered these differences even in a small number of cases and therefore sought to review the literature to highlight the diversity of approaches to this pathology. This review of the literature was not intended to describe the statistical findings found in the clinical case series, but rather to highlight the clinical and surgical difficulties of AH in children. Nevertheless, we conducted an introductory statistical study based on data from PubMed and Google Scholar to understand the global prevalence of AH.

Materials and methods

The search for the key terms Amyand hernia, Amyand’s hernia, and “children” between 2003 and 2023 resulted in 52 PubMed and 548 Google Scholar articles.

Results

After the exclusion of irrelevant studies, 101 articles were found. A total of 83 case reports describing 182 pediatric patients were used to understand the demographic distribution of this pathology. Given the impossibility of further comprehensive statistical analysis (due to heterogeneous data), a narrative design was used to describe the remaining aspects of AH management. Finally, three clinical cases demonstrated the mentioned aspects.

Discussion

As a result of the search, conclusions were drawn about the main difficulties in the management of AH in children, which were discussed.

A systematic review of necrotising fasciitis in children from its first description in 1930 to 2018

BACKGROUND

Necrotising fasciitis is a rapidly progressing soft-tissue infection with a low incidence that carries a relevant risk of morbidity and mortality. Although necrotising fasciitis is often fatal in adults, its case fatality rate seems to be lower in children. A highly variable clinical presentation makes the diagnosis challenging, which often results in misdiagnosis and time-delay to therapy.

METHODS

We conducted a protocol-based systematic review to identify specific features of necrotising fasciitis in children aged one month to 17 years. We searched 'PubMed', 'Web of Science' and 'SCOPUS' for relevant literature. Primary outcomes were incidence and case fatality rates in population-based studies, and skin symptoms on presentation. We also assessed signs of systemic illness, causative organisms, predisposing factors, and reconstructive procedures as secondary outcomes.

RESULTS

We included five studies reporting incidence and case fatality rates, two case-control studies, and 298 cases from 195 reports. Incidence rates varied between 0.022 and 0.843 per 100,000 children per year with a case-fatality rate ranging from 0% to 14.3%. The most frequent skin symptoms were erythema (58.7%; 175/298) and swelling (48%; 143/298), whereas all other symptoms occurred in less than 50% of cases. The majority of cases had fever (76.7%; 188/245), but other signs of systemic illness were present in less than half of the cohort. Group-A streptococci accounted for 44.8% (132/298) followed by Gram-negative rods in 29.8% (88/295), while polymicrobial infections occurred in 17.3% (51/295). Extremities were affected in 45.6% (136/298), of which 73.5% (100/136) occurred in the lower extremities. Skin grafts were necessary in 51.6% (84/162) of the pooled cases, while flaps were seldom used (10.5%; 17/162). The vast majority of included reports originate from developed countries.

CONCLUSIONS

Clinical suspicion remains the key to diagnose necrotising fasciitis. A combination of swelling, pain, erythema, and a systemic inflammatory response syndrome might indicate necrotising fasciitis. Incidence and case-fatality rates in children are much smaller than in adults, although there seems to be a relevant risk of morbidity indicated by the high percentage of skin grafts. Systematic multi-institutional research efforts are necessary to improve early diagnosis on necrotising fasciits.