Clinical Manifestations and Risk Factors Associated with 14 Deaths following Swarm Wasp Stings in a Chinese Tertiary Grade A General Hospital: A Retrospective Database Analysis Study

Maohe Wang; Mei Qin; Amanda Y Wang; Jia-Wei Zhao; Fei Deng; Yumei Han; Wei Wang

doi:10.3390/jcm12185789

Clinical Manifestations and Risk Factors Associated with 14 Deaths following Swarm Wasp Stings in a Chinese Tertiary Grade A General Hospital: A Retrospective Database Analysis Study

J Clin Med. 2023 Sep 6;12(18):5789. doi: 10.3390/jcm12185789.

Authors

Maohe Wang¹, Mei Qin^{1

2}, Amanda Y Wang^{3

4}, Jia-Wei Zhao⁵, Fei Deng², Yumei Han¹, Wei Wang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Nephrology, Suining Central Hospital, Suining 629000, China.
² Renal Department and Nephrology Institute, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610072, China.
³ Renal and Metabolic Division, The George Institute for Global Health, UNSW Australia, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
⁴ Department of Renal Medicine, Concord Repatriation General Hospital, Concord Clinical School, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia.
⁵ Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD 4226, Australia.

Abstract

Introduction: The objective was to evaluate the poisoning severity score (PSS) as an early prognostic predictor in patients with wasp stings and identify associated clinical characteristics and risk factors for mortality.

Methods: A total of 363 patients with wasp stings at Suining Central Hospital between January 2016 and December 2018 were enrolled. Within the first 24 h of admission, the poisoning severity score (PSS) and the Chinese expert consensus on standardized diagnosis and treatment of wasp stings (CECC) were utilized for severity classification, and their correlation was examined. Patients were then divided into survival and death groups based on discharge status. Logistic regression analysis was employed to analyze factors influencing patients' outcomes.

Results: The mortality of wasp sting patients was 3.9%. The PSS and CECC were found to correlate for severity classification. Additionally, female gender, age, number of stings, and PSS were identified as independent risk factors for mortality in wasp sting patients. Combining these four factors yielded an AUC of 0.962 for predicting death.

Conclusions: PSS aids in early severity classification of wasp stings. Female gender, age, number of stings, and PSS were independent mortality risk factors in these patients.

Keywords: death; poisoning severity score; prognosis; risk factors; wasp.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a grant from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Central University Research Fund (ZYGX2019J104), the Science and Technology Project of Sichuan Province (2020YJ0447), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81970641), Sichuan Medical Research Project (S18040), the Science and Technology project of the health planning Committee (19PJ132) and the Renal Department and Institute of Nephrology, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Sichuan Clinical Research Center for Kidney Diseases (2019YFS0538). Dr Amanda Y. Wang is supported by the National Heart Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship and RACP Jacquot Research Establishment Fellowship Australia.