Evolutionary Ecology Group, Area of Biodiversity and Conservation, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, c/ Tulipán s/n., E-28933 Móstoles, Madrid, Spain.
J Med Entomol. 2024 Jul 12;61(4):891-899. doi: 10.1093/jme/tjae045.
Envenomation by terrestrial toxic animals is considered a serious risk to human health worldwide. Snakes, hymenopterans, spiders, and scorpions have mainly attracted the attention of medical literature. However, the relative importance of spiders has been studied only in a few countries. Here, we present the first retrospective study on the incidence of spider bites requiring hospital care in Spain, compared to bites or stings from snakes, hymenopterans, and scorpions. Using ICD9MC and ICD10 databases from the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases for the period 1997-2020, we quantified the cases of envenomation by spiders, compared to those by other terrestrial toxic animals, the demographic data of envenomation cases, the relative severity of spider bites, and the geographic distribution of envenomation cases. Overall, the incidence of acute intoxication by terrestrial toxic animals in Spain was ca. 1.23 cases per million inhabitants. In decreasing order of importance, cases were due to snakes, hymenopterans, spiders, scorpions, and myriapods. Fatal cases were extremely rare, caused mainly by hymenopterans. No fatalities were caused by spiders, scorpions, and myriapods. A greater incidence of snake bites occurred in northern Spain, but no geographical trends were found for spider bites or scorpion stings. Severe poisoning or life-threatening cases due to bites or stings from toxic terrestrial animals in Spain seems to be very low, especially for spiders, compared to other countries in the world. In general, spiders do not present a risk to human health and should not be considered a major driver of morbidity.
在全球范围内，被陆生有毒动物咬伤被认为是对人类健康的严重威胁。蛇、膜翅目昆虫、蜘蛛和蝎子主要引起了医学文献的关注。然而，蜘蛛的相对重要性仅在少数几个国家进行了研究。在这里，我们首次进行了回顾性研究，比较了西班牙需要住院治疗的蜘蛛咬伤与蛇、膜翅目昆虫和蝎子咬伤的发生率。我们使用世界卫生组织国际疾病分类第 9 次修订版（ICD9MC）和第 10 次修订版（ICD10）数据库，对 1997 年至 2020 年期间的病例进行了量化，比较了蜘蛛咬伤与其他陆生有毒动物咬伤的病例、咬伤病例的人口统计学数据、蜘蛛咬伤的相对严重程度以及咬伤病例的地理分布。总体而言，西班牙急性中毒病例的发生率约为每百万居民 1.23 例。按重要性递减的顺序，病例主要由蛇、膜翅目昆虫、蜘蛛、蝎子和多足纲动物引起。致命病例极为罕见，主要由膜翅目昆虫引起。没有因蜘蛛、蝎子或多足纲动物而导致的死亡病例。在西班牙，北部地区蛇咬伤的发生率较高，但未发现蜘蛛咬伤或蝎子蜇伤的地理趋势。在西班牙，由于有毒陆生动物咬伤或蜇伤而导致严重中毒或危及生命的病例似乎非常低，尤其是与世界上其他国家相比，蜘蛛造成的病例非常低。总的来说，蜘蛛不会对人类健康构成威胁，不应被视为发病率的主要驱动因素。
