<p>Clinical features and outcomes of tetanus: a retrospective study</p>

Abstract

Background: Tetanus is a serious disease resulting in muscle spasm, and even death. Methods: A retrospective, single-center study was conducted by analyzing demographic and clinical parameters. Results: The study included 12 males (70.6%) and 5 females (29.4%). The mean age of the patients was 56.71±9.05 years. Patient occupations included farming (47.0%), retired (23.5), homebound (23.5), and workers (6.0%). The causes of patient injuries were as follows: metal injury (52.9%), deep injury (29.4%), electrical injury (5.9%), maxillofacial region and knee injury (5.9%), and skin ulceration (5.9%). The disease duration ranged from 3 to 36 days, and the mean incubation period was 12.65±10.17 days. Four patients had co-morbidities. The infected patients were given tetanus antitoxin (TAT) and antibiotics treatment. One patient was given continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) and only one patient died. Conclusions: In our department, although tetanus is a serious disease, with effective treatment, patients have reasonable cure and low death rates.

Generalized tetanus in a landscaper without obvious wounds

“…The incubation period ranges from 3 to 21 days, averaging about 10 days. Generalized tetanus is the most common form and most common initial sign is spasm of the muscles of the jaw, trismus or “lockjaw” [ 6 ]. This is followed by painful spasms in other muscle groups in the neck, trunk, and extremities.…”

Severity detection tool for patients with infectious disease

“…During the feature extraction step, we set the window duration to be at least 5 min, similar to the duration in the clinical baseline method [14] extracted using a publicly available software solution [24]. The baseline method was selected because it has been a gold standard for many existing works that focused on HRV analysis [5,[15][16][17]. Recently, a similar method has been used to study HRV among tetanus patients.…”

“…Tetanus is a severe disease, often necessitating lengthy hospital treatment (up to six weeks), which was estimated to have caused 48-80,000 deaths in 2015 [2]. It tends to affect the poorest in society in lowand middle-income countries where unvaccinated individuals, particularly manual workers and farmers, are at high risk of contracting it [1,[3][4][5]. A recent study showed that tetanus prevalence is still high in a part of Asia and that it is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates [5][6][7].…”

Tetanus After Trivial Trauma: A Case Series and Review of Pharamocotherapeutic Management

“…Tetanus is a vaccine-preventable neurological disorder that is caused by a spore-forming obligate anaerobe found in the soil [1]. Clinical tetanus is usually seen in unvaccinated individuals 3 to 21 days after a penetrating injury (leading to inoculation of spores of Clostridium tetani) [2]. The spore converts into the vegetative form in the damaged human tissue and produces the tetanospasmin toxin [1].…”

“…The patients with generalized tetanus usually present with trismus and progress to tonic muscular contractions and spasms. The symptoms progress in severity for up to two weeks and last for the total duration of 4-6 weeks [2]. The case-fatality rate of generalized tetanus is highest in areas with poor availability of resources such as mechanical ventilation [3].…”