The Natural History of Stingray Injuries

Stingray envenomation is a marine injury suffered by ocean goers throughout the world. No prospective studies exist on the various outcomes associated with these injuries.

The aim of this study was to perform a prospective, observational study of human stingray injuries to determine the natural history, acute and subacute complications, prevalence of medical evaluation, and categories of medical treatment.

This study prospectively studied a population of subjects who were injured by stingrays at Seal Beach, California (USA) from July 2012 through September 2016 and did not immediately seek emergency department evaluation. Subjects described their initial injury and provided information on their symptoms, medical evaluations, and medical treatment for the injury at one week and one month after the injury. This information was reported as descriptive statistics.

A total of 393 participants were enrolled in the study; 313 (80%) of those completed the one-week follow-up interview and 279 (71%) participants completed both the one-week and one-month follow-up interviews. Overall, 234 (75%) injuries occurred to the foot. One hundred sixty-three (52%) patients had complete resolution of their pain within one week and 261 (94%) had either complete resolution or improvement of pain by one month. Sixty-eight (22%) subjects reported being evaluated by a physician and a total of 49 (17%) subjects reported antibiotic treatment for their wound. None of the subjects required parenteral antibiotics or hospital admission.

The majority of stingray victims recover from stingray injury without requiring antibiotics. A subset of subjects will have on-going wound pain after one month. The need for parenteral antibiotics or hospital admission is rare.