A STUDY OF ROLE OF NUTRITIONAL STATUS ON THE OUTCOME OF VIPERBITE – INDUCED ACUTE RENAL FAILURE AT A TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL.

Background: In India Vipera russelli (Russell's viper), is responsible for a large number of snakebite cases [1] reaching 95% of envenomations in the State of Jammu. V. russelli also are frequently encountered in India and throughout south-east Asia. In Maharashtra State, in India, the annual incidence of severe envenomation is about 70 per 100000 inhabitants and the mortality rate is about 2.4 per 100000 per year [2]. It has been reported that there are 5 million snake bites, resulting in 2.5 million envenoming, 125,000 deaths and perhaps three times that number of permanent sequelae in the world each year. The incidence of snake bite mortality is particularly high in Africa, Asia, Latin America and New Guinea. In India alone there may be as many as 50,000 snake bite deaths each year [3].It is well established that Viperid snake venoms induce renal failure [4,5,6,7] and especially most of the patients comes from the rural area. So in this perspective this study was important, as previously no such recorded data.Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the general nutritional status on admission, to provide additional support, to see the outcome in terms of morbidity and mortality and also to correlate the nutritional status with mortality& morbidity in Viper bite induced renal failure.Materials& Methods: In our study 23 established cases of Viper bite induced renal failure patients are recruited from the indoor admitted cases in our tertiary care teaching hospital from March 2010 to February 2011 They are provide with additional support. Nutritional status was correlated with morbidity and the serum albumin level.Results: Mortality in the study group was13.04%. in comparison with the 14.81% of the control group. Morbidity as hospital stays was 13.79 ± 3.19 days, in comparison with the19.12 ± 1.09 days of the control group. Correlation coefficient was- 0.28359 and – 0.25791 in the two groups.Conclusion: The present study indicates that additional nutritional support should be considered in all the hospital admitted patients, as