Allopaths stymied by Necrotizing Fasciitis

[Guest guest]

except of course, Dr.Robert Cathcart of

http://www.Orthomed.com

 

 

 

April 12, 2006

 

Bacterial Mystery

A spike in deaths due to flesh-eating disease puzzles

health officials.

By Rick Anderson

 

National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation

www.nnff.org.

 

When a Kirkland man died this week from a fast-moving

flesh-eating disease, the media nervously reported it

as the third such local death in the past two months.

Some media anxiously reported that the second death,

of a Tacoma woman killed by the rare strep infection,

was last month.

In fact, if it's eye-catching

headlines they were after, nine local people have been

fatally infected in the first three months of 2006 by

the somewhat mysterious disease known as necrotizing

fasciitis (NF), according to King County Medical

Examiner records. Altogether, in the past 27 months,

45 people in the county have died from the disease.

 

It's an unusual trend but not an epidemic:

flesh-eating disease comes from bacteria on a person's

skin; some strains are common, others deadly. The

disease is not contagious, though it is frequently

transmitted by drug users sharing an injection needle,

which apparently was the case with two King County

Jail inmates who died in 2004. (See " Contagion in the

Jail, " Dec. 7, 2005.)

Still, NF affects everyday

folks, and how a person contracts the disease is

sometimes never known. It generally requires a

deep-skin puncture to enter the body but might result

from the most menial daily task. The Tacoma woman, for

example, apparently died after a severe strain of

bacteria likely entered her system when she nicked a

leg shaving.

 

Unfortunately, " The diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis

can only be definitively made by a pathologist

examining affected tissue under a microscope, "

sometimes after a person dies, notes Dr. Ben Sanders

of Public Health–Seattle & King County. " Until then,

the diagnosis may only be suspected. " Doctors employ

antibiotics in the meantime and, if persuaded it's the

swift-moving disease, often amputate infected limbs.

The wife of the Kirkland man who died April 1 told

KIRO-TV that doctors could actually see the disease

advance in the form of discoloration moving along his

arm. (She didn't know how he contracted it.)

Sometimes

doctors are less responsive to early, albeit unclear,

signs of the disease: The family of the Tacoma woman

is weighing a lawsuit against a hospital that

originally sent her home with pain killers.

 

However,

diagnoses and treatments are improving, and a large

majority of patients survive the inflamed and swollen

infections—including a 6-year-old Bellingham-area boy,

Jake Finkbonner, who is recovering at Children's

Hospital in Seattle but faces restorative surgery. His

family thinks he contracted NF when he was hit in the

mouth by a basketball that cut his lip and infecting

him with Type A strep.

 

Beyond the King County numbers, there are few other

reliable indicators of how widespread deaths are. The

state Department of Health says it no longer keeps

such numbers. Nationally, estimates run from 500 to

1,500 deaths annually from necrotizing fasciitis

 

A review of local ME reports shows death by the disease

might be more frequent than most people think: On

average, one infected patient dies every two to three

weeks in King County alone.

The ME recorded 18 such

deaths in both 2004 and 2005. That's 45 deaths in 27

months, counting the nine so far this year.

Twenty-eight were males, 35 were white, and ages

ranged from 31 to 95; most were in their 40s and 50s.

Most were also residents of the Puget Sound region, as

were all nine this year, but some in the past two

years came from Southwest and Central Washington and

several were from out of state.

While all deaths are

recorded as happening in King County, some victims are

here because Harborview Medical Center offers the best

treatment.

 

The sudden spike of nine deaths in the first quarter

this year has officials puzzled. They say there's no

single known factor behind the increase. County health

spokesperson James Apa reiterates that " necrotizing

fasciitis is not spread through casual contact and

nearly always requires deep insertion of bacteria into

body tissues. " Comparatively, it is " exceedingly rare

in the community, " he adds.

 

randerson

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