Abstract:
Objectives: Dengue fever is one of
common infectious illnesses in childhood
requiring hospital admission. A prospective
study was undertaken in a dengue endemic
setting to analyze clinical features and their
correlation with the laboratory findings.
Methods: The study was prospective
and observational.106 consecutive patients
aged between 3 months to 15 years admitted
with a diagnosis of dengue fever were
included. The diagnosis was made based
on the recent WHO guidelines. Among these
cases hematocrit (HCT), platelet count, chest
x-ray and dengue NS1, IgG and IgM were
analyzed.
Results: 41 cases (38.6%) had severe
dengue fever. There was a strong statistical
correlation between clinical bleeding and
platelet counts (p<0.05). Pleural effusion
was more common on the right side than
the left. Overall mortality was 5.66%.
Children who had respiratory distress at the
time of admission had a higher mortality
rate (p<0.05)
Conclusions: Our study correlates
bleeding and degrees of thrombocytopenia
like other studies. [5,6] High positivity of
NS1 in early disease and IgM later correlate
with other studies.
Right sided pleural effusion was more
common in our study contrary to literature
given
in
standard
textbook
of
pediatrics.[2]Mortality was higher in those
who presented with respiratory distress an
circulatory failure at the time of admission.
