Poisonous Spiders: Bites, Symptoms, and Treatment; an Educational Review

Emerg (Tehran). 2014 Spring;2(2):54-8.

Abstract

More than 40,000 species of spiders have been identified in the world. Spider bites is a common problem among people, however few of them are harmful but delay in treatment can cause death. Since the spider bites are risk full to human, they should be taken seriously, especially in endemic areas. Our objective in this review was to study about poisonous spiders and find out treatments of them. Therefore, we collected related articles from PubMed database and Google Scholar. Three important syndromes caused by spider bites are loxoscelism, latrodectism and funnel web spider syndrome. Many treatments are used but much more studies should have done to decrease the mortality. In this review, we describes different venomous spiders according to their appearance, symptoms after their bites and available treatments.

Keywords: Spiders; black widow spider; emergency treatment; spider bites; spider venoms.

Publication types

  • Review