Diagnósticos hechos a 1384 pacientes que consultaron por probable mordedura de arañas o picaduras de insectos / Diagnosis done to 1384 patients which had consulted for a probable spider bite or insect sting

RESUMO

Accumulate experience, from 1955 to 1995, in an outpatient univesity parasitology clinic in Santiago, which 1384 patients referred from diverse public and private medical institutions because of a probable spider bite or insect stings, is presented. It is noteworthy that only 618 (44,7 percent) of consultations corresponded to clinical conditions originated by arthropods, whereas from the remaining 766, 612 (44,2 percent) were due to a bacterial, viral or parasitic etiology and 154 (11,1 percent) were caused by physical or chemical agents. Frecuency of diagnosis was loxoscelism 16,6 percent, spider bites (excluded loxosceles laeta) 1,3 percent, scorpion stings 0,9 percent, tick stings 2,2 percent insect bites 23,7 percent, impetigo 6,6 percent, folliculitis 11,3 percent, boil 22,7 percent, erysipelas 0,1 percent, pustula maligna 0,3 percent, herpes simplex 2,5 percent, palpebral herpes zoster 0,3 percent, acute Chagas's disease 0,4 percent, angioneurotic edema 0,1 percent, ecchymosis 3,0 percent, contact dermitis 7,8 percent and chemical dermitis 0,2 percent. These frequencies do not indicate the real occurrence of the diagnosed nosologies, but what happened in a specialized outpatient clinic dealing cheafly with parasitic diseases and arthropod envenomations. Description of relevant clinical features and epidemiological considerations of pathology observed conjointly with differential diagnosis are presented