Dog bites: an overview

Dog bite injuries to the hand

“…The incidence of dog bites in the present study was comparable to that in previous studies [3][4][5]. However, since only patients admitted to hospital were included, the number is probably underestimated.…”

“…Twenty-eight percent of all children have a calculated risk of being bitten by a dog at least once [2]. The hand and forearm are involved in 18% to 68% of all dog bites [3][4][5]. The incidence varies from country zone to city areas (71.8 to 18.6/100 000) and among nationalities [2,4,[6][7][8].…”

“…The incidence varies from country zone to city areas (71.8 to 18.6/100 000) and among nationalities [2,4,[6][7][8]. In a Belgian study, the incidence of dog bite was 1% per year [4]. In United States about 4 million dog bites were recorded annually [9] causing 7.1 deaths/ 100 million populations.…”

The human–canine environment: A risk factor for non-play bites?

“…Dog bites to humans are a worldwide problem (Chomel and Trotignon, 1992;Bhanganada et al, 1993;Thompson, 1997;Kumar, 1999;Chen et al, 2000;Ozanne-Smith et al, 2001; Frangakis and Petridou, 2003;Horisberger et al, 2004;Van Eeckhout and Wylock, 2005;Morgan and Palmer, 2007). In the United States there are 300-1000 bites per 100 000 persons per year (Beaver, 1997;Cornwell, 1997) and reports from Switzerland and Belgium have indicated national bite rates of 180 (Horisberger et al, 2004) and 900 (Gisle et al, 2002) per 100 000 per year, respectively.…”

“…Research has focused on the circumstances of incidents (Beck et al, 1975;Beck and Jones, 1985;Szpakowski et al, 1989;Mathews and Lattal, 1994;Thompson, 1997;Guy et al, 2001a; Frangakis and Petridou, 2003;Horisberger et al, 2004), characteristics of both biting dogs (Beck and Jones, 1985;Szpakowski et al, 1989;Gershman et al, 1994;Mathews and Lattal, 1994;Cornwell, 1997;Thompson, 1997;Guy et al, 2001b;Horisberger et al, 2004) and persons bitten (Beck and Jones, 1985;Bhanganada et al, 1993;Mathews and Lattal, 1994;Cornwell, 1997;Thompson, 1997;Savino et al, 2002;Horisberger et al, 2004), the estimation of public health costs (Bhanganada et al, 1993;Weiss et al, 1998), the pathological sequelae to attacks (Fishbein and Robinson, 1993;Mendez Gallart et al, 2002;Peters et al, 2004;Van Eeckhout and Wylock, 2005), and wound care for the victims (Van Eeckhout and Wylock, 2005;Morgan and Palmer, 2007). Unfortunately, few investigators have employed a formal reference series in their studies (Gershman et al, 1994;Chen et al, 2000;Guy et al, 2001c;Drobatz and Smith, 2003;Reisner et al, 2005), and thus research to date has been of limited value in identifying risk factors.…”