<p><b>INTRODUCTION</b>Necrotising
fasciitis (NF) is often found in
patients with
diabetes mellitus,
chronic renal failure,
alcoholism,
malignancy or
liver cirrhosis. However, it remains unknown whether
liver cirrhosis is an independent
risk factor for the occurrence of NF. This study aimed to determine whether
liver cirrhosis is an independent
risk factor for the occurrence of NF, and to identify the relationship between severity of
liver cirrhosis and occurrence of NF.</p><p><b>
METHODS</b>The
National Health Insurance Research Database, maintained by
Taiwan's
National Health Insurance programme, was retrospectively analysed, and the hospitalisation data of 40,802 cirrhotic
patients and 40,865 randomly selected, age‑ and
gender‑matched non‑cirrhotic control
patients was collected. The
medical records of all
patients were individually followed for a three‑year period from the
patients' first hospitalisation in 2004.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>During the three‑year follow‑up period, there were 299 (0.7%) cirrhotic
patients with NF and 160 (0.4%) non‑cirrhotic
patients with NF. Cox
regression analysis showed that
liver cirrhosis was a
risk factor for the occurrence of NF during the study period (
hazard ratio 1.982; p < 0.001). Among cirrhotic
patients, those with complicated
liver cirrhosis had a higher
risk for the occurrence of NF than
patients with non‑complicated
liver cirrhosis (
hazard ratio 1.320; p = 0.028).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Cirrhotic
patients had a higher
risk for the occurrence of NF than non‑cirrhotic
patients, and the
risk for NF was especially high among
patients with complicated
liver cirrhosis.</p>