Foreign body granuloma following dried honey bee venom (Apitoxin Inj) injection

Bee sting therapy is sometimes used for the treatment of chronic recalcitrant neuralgia and arthralgia in traditional Korean herbal medicine, but retained sting materials at the treatment site may induce granulomatous inflammation. Recently, dried honey bee venom (Apitoxin Inj, Guju Pharma. Co., Seoul, Korea) has been approved by the Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) as an anti-inflammatory drug. The adverse events associated with dried honey bee venom injection include itching, edema, pain, headache, fever and myalgia, but foreign body granuloma caused by drug injection has not been previously reported. We herein report two interesting cases of foreign body granuloma induced by dried honey bee venom injection.