Dog Bite Wounds and Their Management Prospective View from Lady Reading Hospital MTI Peshawar KPK, Pakistan

Background: Dog bite and dog bitten wound are serious health care problem. The stray dog, non-vaccinated domestic dog, free-roaming known dogs has worsened the problem here, lack of awareness, poor finances is major hindrance for receiving post-exposure prophylaxis as well as timely wound management for rabies. Aim: To highlight the most common victim, wounding pattern, most common anatomical region wounded and wound management from our setup. Methods This is a single center-based analytical cross-sectional study. Conducted from December 2021 till March 2022 spanning a duration of three months at academic tertiary care hospital situated in Peshawar city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. N=277 victims of dog bitten victims with different wound patterns and from different central and peripheral areas reported to us. Chi-square test used for categorical data relationships. A P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant. SPSS version 22 was deployed to analyze the results. Mean standard deviation was used to illustrate numerical data. Results The majority of dog bite victims reported to us were from sub-urban areas of Peshawar, the majority were male 207(74.7%), and female 64(23.1%). The most common victims were under 15 years of age majority had 37.2% 272(98.2%) arrived with an intact primary survey. 93.5% had an unprovoked bite and 6.5% reached with the obviously contaminated wound. 96% had washed their wound at home soap and water and other antiseptic solution 5% of them needed fluid resuscitation and intravenous analgesia. 242(81.4%) were category III wounds. Conclusion: Controlling free-roaming and stray dog’s population is a cornerstone for preventing these disfiguring wounds. Adequate lavage and selective debridement can minimize the scar. For Wounds larger than 3 cm combined efforts with general surgery and plastic surgery/maxillofacial surgery can give a better outcome. Keywords: Stray dog, laceration puncture, soft tissue, soft tissue loss, healing by secondary intension, primary closure