Analysis of Disease Parameters in Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever versus Classic Dengue Fever Patients

Abstract

Dengue fever (DF) is mosquito born disease infecting 390 million individuals globally. It may present with several classical DF, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) or Dengue shock syndrome. Clinical symptoms included headache, fever, bone pain or some time flue like symptoms. It is commonly diagnosed by serological detection of IgM, NS1 antigen in patients’s serum. The disease progression and management is monitored by a simple complete blood picture test. This hematological test is readily available at all health care facilities. This study was designed to investigate the differentiation of hematological parameters in DF and DHF. This was a retrospective cross sectional study, performed on 158 patients. The data was collected from the Allied Laboratory Lahore, Pakistan between March 2020 to February 2022. Demographic and clinical data was analysed by SPSS V.26. Data suggest that the dengue infection was more common in active age group i.e.15-30 years of age. The data showed significance difference between of the hematological parameters in both groups (P value less than 0.05). The group comparison of hematological parameters showed TLC (DF: Mean=4.25, DHF: Mean=3.21), RBC count (DF:DHF, Mean=5.66:6.68), Platelets count (DF:DHF, Mean=129.31: 84.39) and Hb levels (DF:DHF, Mean=13.08: 14.27) and HCT (DF:DHF, Mean=51.08: 59.27). Results showed that in DHF, malfunction in intrinsic coagulation pathway is observed. DF patients might have no bleeding while DHF can have no shock or shock, resulting in DSS. The study concludes that these laboratory findings help in efficient understanding of clinical picture of dengue fever and in early identification of the disease in narrow resources areas. The development and implementation of sustainable preventive and control strategies that will reverse the trend of emerging dengue hemorrhagic fever is a serious problem for public health experts in Pakistan and the world at large.