Snakebite and a heart murmur

Marideli Colon Scanlan, MD, Rachel Kruspe, MD, Glenn A. Cochran, MD, Herman A. Heck, MD, and D. Luke Glancy, MD

A 59-year-old commercial crawfisherman came to the emergency department complaining of a swollen, red, painful right hand and forearm and subjective fever. The hand was bitten by a snake 4 days earlier when the man was fishing. Although it was discovered that the patient had a cardiac murmur, the snakebite and resulting cellulitis, which responded promptly to antibiotics, had nothing to do with it. At operation a heavily calcified congenitally bicuspid aortic valve was found.