Working Paper Article Version 1 This version is not peer-reviewed

Wound Infections From Taiwan Cobra Bites: Determining Bacteriology, Antibiotic Susceptibility, and the Use of Antibiotics-A Cobra BITE Study

Version 1 : Received: 26 January 2021 / Approved: 27 January 2021 / Online: 27 January 2021 (13:06:10 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Yeh, H.; Gao, S.-Y.; Lin, C.-C. Wound Infections from Taiwan Cobra (Naja atra) Bites: Determining Bacteriology, Antibiotic Susceptibility, and the Use of Antibiotics-A Cobra BITE Study. Toxins 2021, 13, 183. Yeh, H.; Gao, S.-Y.; Lin, C.-C. Wound Infections from Taiwan Cobra (Naja atra) Bites: Determining Bacteriology, Antibiotic Susceptibility, and the Use of Antibiotics-A Cobra BITE Study. Toxins 2021, 13, 183.

Abstract

Taiwan cobra (Naja atra) bites account for approximately 20% of all venomous snakebites in Taiwan. In Taiwan, the rates of wound necrosis and secondary infection from Taiwan cobra bites are higher than those associated with other venomous snakebites. Clinical tools to evaluate the infection risk after Taiwan cobra bites are lacking. Therefore, in this study, we developed a useful clinical tool to evaluate the infection risk after Taiwan cobra bites. Moreover, we investigated wound infection bacteriology. We analyzed the data of patients bitten by N. atra who had undergone freeze-dried neurotoxic antivenin treatment in emergency rooms of the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital network, which comprises seven hospitals and the largest medical system in Taiwan, from January 2001 to May 2017. Because patients with wound necrosis required antibiotics for infection treatment, we included only patients with wound infection but without tissue necrosis in the development of our Cobra Bacteriology of Infections in Taiwanese snake Envenomation (Cobra BITE) score by using univariate and multiple logistic regression. In total, 8,295,497 emergency department visits occurred from January 2001 to May 2017, and 195 patients were diagnosed has having cobra bites. Among them, 23 and 30 patients had wound necrosis and wound infection, respectively. The wound infection rate was 27.2% (53/195). Regardless of whether the patients had necrosis, Enterococcus faecalis and Morganella morganii were the main bacteria identified in the culture report. Gentamicin, ceftriaxone, ciprofloxacin, and levofloxacin are the ideal first-line antibiotics for treating N. atra bite wounds in Taiwan. As per our Cobra BITE score, the three factors predicting secondary wound infection after cobra bites are hospital admission, a white blood cell count (in 103/µL) × by neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio value of ≥114.23, and the use of antivenin medication. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the Cobra BITE score system was 0.88. The ideal sensitivity and specificity were 0.89 and 0.76, respectively, and the optimal cutoff point for Cobra BITE score was 7. The Hosmer–Lemeshow p value was 0.4. In conclusion, our Cobra BITE study established a new practical clinical tool for clinicians to evaluate infection risk after N. atra bites. This score system enables the assessment of wound infections after N. atra bites, and it could be modified and improved in future for other Naja spp. bites.

Keywords

wound infections; snakebites; Taiwan cobra; Naja atra

Subject

Medicine and Pharmacology, Pharmacology and Toxicology

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