Necrotizing Sweet Syndrome of the Upper Extremity After Elective Hand Surgery

Sweet syndrome, or acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis, is a systemic disease process mainly characterized by hyperpyrexia and skin lesions. A newly described entity, necrotizing Sweet syndrome, is a severe and locally aggressive dermatological condition that clinically and histopathologically resembles a necrotizing soft tissue infection. It is characterized by pathergy, a nonspecific inflammatory response to cutaneous trauma resulting in a propagation of the disease. In contrast to a necrotizing infection, this condition responds to systemic steroids. A high clinical suspicion is required in order to distinguish a necrotizing polymicrobial infection from noninfectious necrotizing Sweet syndrome. We present a case following elective hand surgery.