Man Dies Of Internal Bleeding After Rattlesnake Bites His Finger
In a recent issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine (Volume 20, Number 2, 2009), Anne-Michelle Ruha and Steven Curry have written an article entitled “Recombinant Factor VIIa for Treatment of Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage Following Rattlesnake Envenomation.” This is a “case report,” meaning that this is a description of a particular medical event, rather than a study.
To open the piece, the authors observe that North American rattlesnakes possess venom with properties that can cause severe physiological effects, such as low platelet count and, on occasion. bleeding. In this report, we learn about a 44 year old man who was bitten on the index finger by an unidentified (unknown for this case) species of rattlesnake. The victim developed massive gastrointestinal bleeding that was treated eventually with a product known as recombinant factor VIIa. His initial clinical presentation included an altered level of consciousness, profoundly low blood pressure (shock), sweating, and vomiting of bright red blood. Read more »
This post, Man Dies Of Internal Bleeding After Rattlesnake Bites His Finger, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
