[Fournier's gangrene: description of a case]

Fournier's gangrene, named after the french dermatologist who was the first to described it in 1883, is a necrotizing fasciitis which affects men's external genitalia and more rarely women's. In most cases the clinical onset is sudden, characterized by fever and local tumefaction rapidly evolving into gangrene. The most credited aetiology is infective and one or more aerobic and/or anaerobic micro-organisms are supposed to be the cause. The pathogenesis involves an endarteritic obliterative process affecting the small vessels of the superficial branch of the internal pudendal artery.