Scoring system
A white blood cell count greater than 15,000 cells/mm3 and serum sodium level less than 135 mmol/L have a sensitivity of 90% in detecting the necrotizing soft tissue infection. It also has a 99% chance of ruling out necrotizing changes if the values have shown otherwise. Various scoring systems are being developed to determine the likelihood of getting necrotizing fasciitis, but a scoring system developed by Wong and colleagues in 2004 is the most commonly used. It is the laboratory risk indicator for necrotizing fasciitis (LRINEC) score, which can be used to stratify by risk those people having signs of severe cellulitis or abscess to determine the likelihood of necrotizing fasciitis being present. It uses six laboratory values: C-reactive protein, total white blood cell count, hemoglobin, sodium, creatinine, and blood glucose. A score of 6 or more indicates that necrotizing fasciitis should be seriously considered. The scoring criteria are:

CRP (mg/L) ≥150: 4 points
WBC count (×103/mm3)
<15: 0 points
15–25: 1 point
>25: 2 points
Hemoglobin (g/dL)
>13.5: 0 points
11–13.5: 1 point
<11: 2 points
Sodium (mmol/L) <135: 2 points
Creatinine (umol/L) >141: 2 points
Glucose (mmol/L) >10: 1 pointHowever, the scoring system has not been validated. The values would be falsely positive if any other inflammatory conditions are present. Therefore, the values derived from this scoring system should be interpreted with caution. About 10% of patients with necrotizing fasciitis in the original study still had a LRINEC score <6. A validation study showed that patients with a LRINEC score ≥6 have a higher rate of both death and amputation.
Society and culture
Notable cases
1994 Lucien Bouchard, former premier of Québec, Canada, who was infected while leader of the federal official opposition Bloc Québécois party, lost a leg to the illness. 1994 A cluster of cases occurred in Gloucestershire, in the west of England. Of five confirmed and one probable infection, two died. The cases were believed to be connected. The first two had acquired the Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria during surgery; the remaining four were community-acquired. The cases generated much newspaper coverage, with lurid headlines such as "Flesh Eating Bug Ate My Face". 1997 Ken Kendrick, former agent and partial owner of the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, contracted the disease. He had seven surgeries in a little more than a week and later fully recovered. 2004 Don Rickles, American stand-up comedian, actor, and author, known especially for his insult comedy, contracted the disease in his left leg. He had six operations and later recovered. The condition confined him in his later years to performing comedy from a chair. 2004 Eric Allin Cornell, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics, lost his left arm and shoulder to the disease. 2005 Alexandru Marin, an experimental particle physicist, professor at MIT, Boston University, and Harvard University, and researcher at CERN and JINR, died from the disease. 2006 Alan Coren, British writer and satirist, announced in his Christmas column for The Times that his long absence as a columnist had been caused by his contracting the disease while on holiday in France.