Effects of cytokines on prognosis and treatment of scorpion sting

Purpose: Knowlodge about the changes of cytokines in toxications due toscorpion sting based on limited case reports and publications. In this study we aimed todemostrate the effect of changes in cytokine levels in toxications due to scorpion stingover the treatment and clinical course.Materials and Methods: After local ethical committee approval, we enrolled 40patients who had admitted to emergency service because of scorpion sting and controlgroup through two years to this prospective study. Age, sex, duration of hospitalizationand ECG findings were recorded. We evaluated if there was a statistical relationbetween Tumor Necrosis Factor-?, Interleukin-6, Interleukin-8, Interleukin-10 levels onadmission and the clinical course.Findings: 21 women and 19 men, total 40 patients, were enrolled to the study.It was found that scorpion stings are most frequent in July and August, especially atnight time between 16:00-20:00 pm and seen particularly on handfingers. Meanduration of hospital stay was 13±12 hours. Mean values of Tumor Necrosis Factor-?,Interleukin-6, Interleukin-8, Interleukin-10 were (19,8±55,3), (29,5±41,7),(82,5±130,4), (34,4±74,5) respectively. Local complains like pain, rush, paresthesiawere seen in % 80 of cases. % 50 of patients were phase 1, other half was phase 2. Themost apparent ECG finding was the sinus tachycardia. All patients were treated inemergency service. After follow period all patients were discharged with full recovery.Results: Admissions to emergency service with toxications due to scorpion stingincrease in Cukurova, an agricultural region, especially during summer. There was asignificant relation between hospital stay duration and TNF-? but the other cytokinesdid not show relation. The fact that all the patients admitted with scorpion sting did notdevelop any complication represents that scorpions living in this region are at low toxiclevels. The relation between hospital stay duration and TNF-? give rise to thought thatthis parameter can be useful in patients with risk. However multicentric studiesincluding higher volume of patients can provide certain datas to lighten this subject.