The clinical management of scorpion stings in children

Abstract EN

Management of scorpion envenomation in children is a difficult problem (1).

The envenomation syndrome is not very well understood in humans (2-4) although there has been extensive work on animal envenomation (5-7).

This is an attempt to bring together the two experiences in order to produce an acceptable management protocol for envenomation in children.

This protocol is based on the management of more than 2,500 cases over a period of seven years in Saudi Arabia where the mortality was about five per cent at the start and zero at the end.

The management protocol adopted there in 1992 was a result of serious work on clinical data from Ministry of Health hospitals and laboratory work in the pharmacology department of the faculty of Pharmacy, King Saud University.