Necrotizing fasciitis is a rapidly spreading, bacterial, soft-tissue infection reported in both humans and dogs. A review of the pathophysiology, clinical findings, diagnosis, and treatment of necrotizing fasciitis is presented, with the goal of familiarizing veterinarians with this uncommon but potentially fatal condition. A case report highlighting the fulminant course of this disease is also included.

The identification of aged latent fingerprints is often difficult, especially for those of children. To understand this phenomenon, the chemical composition of children's versus adults' latent fingerprints was examined over time using Fourier transform infrared microscopy. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed that children's and adults' prints were distinguishable for up to 4 weeks after deposition, based on differences in sebum composition. Specifically, adults had a higher lipid content than children, but both decreased over time, attributable to the volatility of free fatty acids. The aliphatic CH(3), aliphatic CH(2), and carbonyl ester compositions changed differently in adults versus children over time, consistent with higher cholesterol and cholesteryl esters in children's prints and wax esters and glycerides in adults' prints. Thus, fingerprint composition changes with time differently in children versus adults, making it a sensitive metric to estimate the age of an individual, especially when the age of the print is known.

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Whether the lower risk of mortality associated with arteriovenous fistula use in hemodialysis patients is due to the avoidance of catheters or if healthier patients are simply more likely to have fistulas placed is unknown. To provide clarification, we determined the proportion of access-related deaths in a retrospective cohort study of patients aged $18 years who initiated hemodialysis between 2004 and 2012 at five Canadian dialysis programs. A total of 3168 patients initiated dialysis at the participating centers; 2300 met our inclusion criteria. Two investigators independently adjudicated cause of death using explicit criteria and determined whether a death was access-related. We observed significantly lower mortality in individuals who underwent a predialysis fistula attempt than in those without a predialysis fistula attempt in patients aged ,65 years (hazard ratio [HR], 0.49; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.29 to 0.82) and in the first 2 years of follow-up in those aged $65 years (HR 0-24 months , 0.60; 95% CI, 0.43 to 0.84; HR 24+ months , 1.83; 95% CI, 1.25 to 2.67). Sudden deaths that occurred out of hospital accounted for most of the deaths, followed by deaths due to cardiovascular disease and infectious complications. We found only 2.3% of deaths to be access-related. In conclusion, predialysis fistula attempt may associate with a lower risk of mortality. However, the excess mortality observed in patients treated with catheters does not appear to be due to direct, access-related complications but is likely the result of residual confounding, unmeasured comorbidity, or treatment selection bias.

Vascular access–related complications can lead to patient morbidity and reduced patient quality of life. Some of the common arteriovenous access complications include failure to mature, stenosis formation, and thrombosis.