Brachial artery thrombosis following multiple wasp stings

Abstract

Introduction Wasp stings are commonly encountered in general medical wards in Sri Lanka [1]. Wasps are categorised under the insect Order Hymenoptera, which comes under Phylum Arthropoda, and is the third largest of the insect orders [2]. Wasp stings may lead to serious health issues ranging from simple local reactions to life threatening systemic complications including anaphylaxis and arterial thrombosis. Vascular thrombosis is a rare manifestation of wasp venom thus only few cases have been reported in the literature. The pathophysiology of vascular thrombosis may include the vasoactive inflammatory and thrombogenic properties of venom as well as vascular spasm caused by the venom [2,3,4]. The reported cases of vascular thrombosis include cerebral artery thrombosis and ischaemic strokes, descending aortic thrombosis, coronary artery thrombosis and myocardial infarctions but never a brachial artery thrombosis, to the best of our knowledge [3,5,6,7].