Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about skin and soft tissue infections.

And you can find written notes on this topic at zero to finals.com slash cellulitis or in the infectious diseases section of the zero to finals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Cellulitis is an infection of the skin and the soft tissues underneath.

The skin forms a physical barrier between the environment and the soft tissues.

When a patient presents with cellulitis, look for a breach in the skin barrier and a point

of entry for bacteria, and this may be due to skin trauma, exma, fungal nail infections or ulcers.

Let's talk about the presentation.

Skin changes in cellulitis include erythema or red discoloration of the skin,

warm or hot to touch, tense skin, thickened appearance to the skin,

edematous with fluid building up in the skin, thickened appearance to the skin, ademitus with fluid building up in the skin,

bull eye which are fluid-filled blisters, and a golden crust indicates staphlococcus aureus

ores infection.

Patients may be systemically unwell, including having sepsis.

Let's go through the causes.

The most common causes are Staphylococcus aureus, which is the one to remember,

Group A Streptococcus, mainly Streptococcus pyogenes,

and Group C streptococcus, mainly streptococcus dyscalacti.

MRSA should also be considered, particularly in patients with repeated hospital admissions and

courses of antibiotics.

Next let's talk about the Eron classification.

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