Clinical Toxinology Resources Home
 
 
  Nephrotoxicity_Overview

Nephrotoxicity

Renal damage is a common sequelae of bites by many species of snakes and may be primary or secondary and vary from mild transient rises in creatinine and urea levels, detectable only by laboratory tests, through oliguric or anuric renal failure, to rare cases of permanent renal damage (renal cortical necrosis). Careful measurement of urine output is important to detect early evidence of functional renal problems, which are otherwise asymptomatic, at least in the critical early hours after a bite.