Poster 058 - Usefulness of various antivenoms in the neutralization of toxic activities of Guyanan

Poster 58. Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira de Toxinologia, 8., Symposium of the Pan American Section of the International Society on Toxinology, 8., 2004, Angra dos Reis, Brasil. Abstracts... J. Venom. Anim. Toxins incl.Trop. Dis., 2004, 10, 3, p.417.

Usefulness of various antivenoms In the neutralization of toxic activities of Guyanan snake venoms.

¹Estévez, J.; ²de Roodt, A.R.; ³Magaña, P.; ³Vidal, N.; ¹Mancilla, R.; ⁴ Alagón, A.; ⁵Chippaux, J-Ph. and ⁶Paniagua-Solís, J.F.

1 Instituto Bioclón, México DF, México. 2 I.N.P.B.–A.N.L.I.S. “Dr. Carlos G. Malbrán”, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 3 Museum National d’Historie Naturelle, Paris, France. 4 Instituto de Biotecnología, UNAM, Cuernavaca, México. 5 Institut de Recherche per le Developpement, Daban, Senegal. 6 Laboratorios Silanes, México DF, México.

The lethal potency, hemorrhagic, coagulant and defibrinogenating activities of Bothrops brazili, Bothropsatrox and Lachesismuta venoms from Guyanas and their neutralization by three antivenoms for therapeutic use were studied. The antivenoms tested were: 1) anti-Bothropic, 2) anti Bothropic – Crotalic (both from South America), 3) anti-Viperid (from North America) and 4) experimental polyvalent antivenom (polyvalent bothropic-crotalic and Lachesis antivenom). Bothropsbrazili venom showed the highest lethal and coagulant activities, close with that of B. atrox which showed the highest defibrinogenating potency. The venom of Lachesismuta showed the lowest lethal, hemorrhagic and coagulant activities. The hemorrhagic activities of both Bothropic venoms were similar. Although all the Bothropic or Bothropic-Crotalic antivenoms were effective in different degree to neutralize the venom of Bothropsbrazili and Bothropsatrox, the neutralization of Lachesismuta venom was only achieved using the experimental polyvalent antivenom, which included this venom in its immunogenic mixture. Data obtained in this work showed the different usefulness of the antivenoms studied to neutralize the snake venom tested, which showed good neutralization on the Bothropic venoms. In this work, the experimental antivenom seemed to have the best neutralizing capacity on the principal venomous snakes from Guyanas. Especially for the treatment of Lachesismuta bites, homologous or polyvalent antivenoms that include “bushmaster” venom in its immunogenic mixture should be used.