[Considerations on collateral treatments used with hyperbaric oxygenation in the therapy of gas gangrene].

The devastating nature of gas gangrene has in the past necessitated radical surgery to prevent the destructive spread of the disease. The advent of antibiotics only partly reduced the need for radical amputations and distressing multilations. Immediate, extensive surgery has now been reduced to a minimum thanks to Hyperbaric Oxygen which rapidly dominates the toxicity of Clostridium. Experience shows that it is still, unfortunately, necessary to emphasize the futility of certain ill-timed and often exaggeratedly multilating surgical approaches, which have at times utterly nullified the clearly positive results obtained by HOT in three cases of post-traumatic gas gangrene.