Gas gangrene

Alternative Names

Symptoms

The site of infection becomes inflamed with a pale-to-brownish-red and very painful tissue swelling. If you press on the swollen tissue with your fingers, you may feel gas as a crackly sensation. The edges of the infected area expand so quickly that changes are visible over a few minutes. The involved tissue is completely destroyed.

Symptoms include:

• Air under the skin (subcutaneous emphysema)
• Anxiety
• Blisters filled with brown-red fluid
• Drainage from the tissues, foul-smelling brown-red or bloody fluid (serosanguineous discharge)
• Increased heart rate (tachycardia)
• Moderate-to-high fever
• Moderate-to-severe pain around a skin injury
• Pale skin color, later becoming dusky and changing to dark red or purple
• Progressive swelling around a skin injury
• Sweating
• Vesicle formation, combining into large blisters
• Yellow color to the skin (jaundice)

Note: Symptoms usually begin suddenly and quickly worsen.

If the condition is not treated, the person can develop a shock-like syndrome with decreased blood pressure (hypotension), kidney failure, coma, and finally death.

Exams and Tests

The person may be in shock. A health care professional might feel air in the tissues (crepitus).

• Anaerobic tissue and/or fluid culture may reveal Clostridium species
• Blood culture may grow the bacteria causing the infection
• Gram stain of fluid from the infected area may show gram-positive rods (Clostridium species) or other bacterial types
• X-ray, CT scan, or MRI of the area may show gas in the tissues