Clinical Profile and Lab Findings of Dengue Fever in Children Admitted in a Tertiary Care Hospital.

Dengue is an arboviral infection dengue virus (DENV 1-4) transmitted by Aedes mosquito. It shows a wide range of clinical presentation from asymptomatic cases to undifferentiated fever, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) or dengue shock syndrome (DSS) or non-severe and severe dengue. Most cases of dengue are self-limiting; however, severe dengue has high mortality if not diagnosed and managed early during the disease. Dengue virus (DENV) infection is a serious global public health challenge resulting approximately 200 million cases of morbidity and 50,000 cases of mortality annually. Management is based on clinical and lab parameters with certain lab tests aiding in the early forecast of severe dengue. While serological tests (detection of nonstructural protein 1 [NS1] antigen, immunoglobulin IgM and IgG antibodies aid in diagnosis of dengue, simple, cost-effective, easy tests such as hematocrit and platelet counts have great utility in resource-poor healthcare systems for predicting onset of severe dengue. To determine the clinical profile and lab findings of different varieties of Dengue fever in children admitted in a tertiary care hospital. This retrospective observational study was designed to collect data from the medical records of children of both sexes, aged up to 12 years old. The study was conducted from April 2019 to September 2019 in pediatrics department of BSMMU, Dhaka. A total of 50 children who were admitted with the complaints of fever and were found positive for either NS1 antigen or dengue IgM or IgG antibodies were included in the study. Patients with chronic diseases or any concurrent infections were excluded. Samples were collected from hospital record and kept in a separate management system only for dengue patients. The demographics, clinical and laboratory findings were recorded via structured data collection sheet. Among 50 cases, 22 were dengue fever, 17 were dengue hemorrhagic fever and 11 were dengue shock syndrome. The mean age of study participant was 6.95. Out of 50 patients, Male 62.0% were predominant over the female 38.0% and majority 74.0% came from urban area. Fever (95.5%) was mostly the presenting feature in dengue fever. Bleeding (29.4%) and tourniquet test positive (47.0%) were most in DHF. Hypotension (90.0%), tachycardia (90.9%), edema (18.2%), shock (90.9%) and hepatomegaly (72.7%) were mostly present in DSS. Neutropenia (72.7%) was significant in DSS. Platelet count (32,588.24±22,335.67) was significantly low in DHF. Albumin count (27.82±5.25) and TCO2 (18.27±1.8) were significantly low in DSS. Statistical analysis was done by Kuskalwallis test for categorical data analysis and one way ANOVA test for comparison of continuous data. P value <0.05 is considered as significant. This time it was seen that bleeding, tourniquet test positivity with low platelet count is seen in DHF. But DSS was marked by hepatomegaly and hypoalbuminaemia.