Snakebite treatment buys time
Ointment slows venom’s progress to vital organs
By Nadia Drake
Indiana Jones, intrepid cinematic archaeologist, is famously afraid of snakes. Perhaps he wouldn’t need to be if he had a new ointment developed by scientists in Australia. Quickly applying a nitric oxide–containing ointment near the bite site slows the spread of some venoms, including the notorious eastern brown snake’s, the researchers report online June 26 in Nature Medicine.
“This treatment might make all the difference between dying on the road and getting to the hospital in time,” says physician and emeritus professor of tropical medicine David Warrell of the University of Oxford, who was not involved with the study. Worldwide, snakebite causes approximately 100,000 deaths and 400,000 limb amputations each year.
Physiologist Dirk van Helden at the University of Newcastle and his colleagues showed that in humans, applying an ointment containing nitric oxide within one minute of a simulated snakebite slows the transit of injected tracer molecules. Foot-to-groin venom travel times increased from an average of 13 minutes without the ointment to an average of 54 minutes with the ointment applied in a 5-centimeter diameter circle just up the limb from the bite site. The group also tested the effects of the cream on rats injected with venom from the brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis). Its potent venom travels through the body’s lymphatic system, eventually halting respiration and causing death.