Abstract
Historically human and animal bites to the hand have resulted in significant morbidity in relation to the high risk of contamination and subsequent infection. Our study aimed to assess the outcomes following such injuries in terms of infection requiring further intervention through specialist referral to the hand surgery team at our hospital.
124 consecutive patients attending the A&E department over a three month period in 2011 were included in this retrospective study which provided 126 separate cases due to bilateral injuries (110 animal: 16 human). Data was obtained from the electronic patient management system. The demographics of each patient were recorded followed by type of bite sustained including number and size of lacerations.
79% of patients presented within 24 hours and the majority before 6 hours from injury. The majority of the forearm bites were documented as superficial abrasions and none of these went on to develop problems with infection, so the study concentrated on bite injuries to the hand of which there were 99 cases. Most hand injuries were a single puncture or laceration (64%) but in 9 cases there were greater than 3 separate wounds.
5 cases were directly referred to the Hand surgery team with 4 requiring admission and of these 3 required washout and debdridement in theatres. The remaining 94 cases were managed solely by A&E. Of these 94 cases 87 pts received Abx and 78 pts had a lavage. Overall 68% received both Abx and lavage. Subsequent to discharge from A&E only 3 developed problems with infection later (2 requiring specialist input) they were all dog bites and in keeping with the ‘typical’ bite pattern seen in other pts.
The study concluded that bites not involving joint, tendon or bone have only a small chance of causing infection provided good initial treatment.
