Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Neurol. Jun 28, 2016; 6(2): 23-29
Published online Jun 28, 2016. doi: 10.5316/wjn.v6.i2.23
Clinical consequences of centipede bite: Is it neurotoxic?
Ioannis N Mavridis, Maria Meliou, Efstratios-Stylianos Pyrgelis
Ioannis N Mavridis, Department of Neurosurgery, “K.A.T.-N.R.C.”, General Hospital of Attica, Kifissia, 14561 Athens, Greece
Maria Meliou, Department of Internal Medicine, “Sotiria” General Hospital of Chest Diseases, 11527 Athens, Greece
Efstratios-Stylianos Pyrgelis, Department of Neurology, “K.A.T.-N.R.C.”, General Hospital of Attica, Kifissia, 14561 Athens, Greece
Author contributions: Mavridis IN, Meliou M and Pyrgelis ES reviewed the literature and wrote this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ioannis N Mavridis, MD, PhD, Department of Neurosurgery, “K.A.T.-N.R.C.”, General Hospital of Attica, Nikis Street 2, Kifissia, 14561 Athens, Greece. pap-van@otenet.gr
Telephone: +30-697-8327199 Fax: +30-210-2833600
Received: March 15, 2016
Peer-review started: March 17, 2016
First decision: April 19, 2016
Revised: April 28, 2016
Accepted: May 31, 2016
Article in press: June 2, 2016
Published online: June 28, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Centipede bite commonly causes only local reactions, which usually resolve within a few days without sequelae. The patients in the majority of cases describe a painful but benign syndrome. Mild constitutional symptoms are relatively frequent, whereas severe systematic reactions, such as anaphylaxis, hypotension and even myocardial ischemia, are rare. According to the current literature, the centipede bite does not seem to be neurotoxic to humans. However, it commonly causes symptoms mediated by the nervous system. These include local and generalized symptoms, with the first dominated by sensory disturbances and the second by non-specific symptoms such as headache, anxiety and vagotonia.