Symptoms, complications and type of treatments performed on snake bites, hospitalized in Sina Hospital, Tabriz 2019-2021

Abstract

Snakebite is a serious public health problem in Iran and many other countries. It is estimated that around 2.1 to 5.5 million people worldwide suffer from snakebites annually. Snakebite, in addition to chronic complications such as amputation, also causes the annual death of tens of thousands of people. Given that only the viper snake is present in the Azerbaijan region, and since the symptoms and complications of viper bites in this region have not been investigated until now, we decided to conduct a study aimed at investigating the symptoms, complications, and types of treatments performed in viper bites resulting in hospitalization at the Sina Educational, Research and Treatment Center in Tabriz over a three-year period (2019-2021). Materials and Methods: All patients who presented to the Sina Hospital Education Center with a complaint of snakebite and were hospitalized in the toxicology ward (men, women, and ICU) due to snakebite complications were included in the study after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The required information was extracted from the patients’ records based on a checklist and entered into the questionnaire form. After collecting all the patient data within the three-year period from 2019 to 2021, the data was entered into the SPSS software and analyzed according to the required objectives based on the type of variables. Results: The study was conducted on 181 patients. The mean age of the patients was 41.15±1.23 years, and 149 of them were male and 32 were female. Swelling and coagulation disorders were the most common symptoms and complications caused by snakebites in the study patients. Among the systemic symptoms studied, only the relationship between age and the occurrence of vomiting (P-Value=0.04) was significant. The average number of antivenom vials used for patients was 12.16±10.52, and after the administration of antivenom, debridement was the most commonly used treatment, and the right palm, back of the right hand, and fingers of the right hand were the most affected areas.