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Management of a case of human bite complicated by myonecrosis and compartment syndrome

Sibel Basaran1, Cenk Ozkan, Ilke Coskun-Benlidayi

  • 1Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Medicine, Cukurova University, Adona, Turkey. sbasaran@cu.edu.tr

Journal of the National Medical Association
|April 1, 2009
PubMed

Case reports concerning rare complications of human bite injuries are uncommon in the literature. Further, rehabilitation of the resultant dysfunction is also hardly reported. A 41-year-old housewife who had had a human bite during an altercation 6 months ago was referred to the rehabilitation department with a nonfunctioning right hand. Twelve days after the injury she developed a compartment syndrome with complicating myonecrosis, which required fasciotomy and resulted in amputation of the fifth digit on the 17th day. Soft-tissue defects were reconstructed with skin grafts. Unfortunately, the patient did not attend followup visits, and 6 months after the initial injury she had to be admitted to the rehabilitation department with a nonfunctional hand. She had marked limitations of range of motion of the wrist and almost all finger joints. A rehabilitation program was initiated to improve the functional limitations of her hand. After the rehabilitation program, she was able to use her right hand in her daily routine activities. Rehabilitation can still be useful in order to avoid permanent disability even in late and complicated cases of bite injuries.

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