UTILITY OF SERUM ALBUMIN AND C-REACTIVE PROTEIN FOR ASSESSING THE SEVERITY OF DENGUE INFECTION- A RECORD BASED CASE SERIES STUDY.

Abstract

Background: Dengue is the most rapidly spreading mosquito borne viral disease in the world. Dengue viruses are avivirus, which include four serotypes 1, 2, 3 and 4. Clinical expression of dengue virus infection vary from asymptomatic infection to severe dengue with shock. Incidence has increased 30- fold in the last 50 years with increasing geographic expansion to new countries and, in the present decade, from urban to rural settings. At present, dengue fever (DF) causes more illness and death than any other arboviral disease of humans. Aims and objectives: To determine the value of serum albumin and C-reactive protein (CRP) in the assessment of severity of dengue infection in patients admitted to SNMC and HSK hospital. Materials and methods: Record based study done on patients admitted to general medicine department of S Nijalingappa Medical College and HSK hospital, bagalkot, Karnataka. Patients with Dengue NS1 Ag or IgM positive are included in the study after meeting inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: A total of 65 patients were studied according to the inclusion criteria. Majority of the patients were between 20-40years of age with 56.9% being male patients and 43.1% were females. 40% of the patients had dengue without warning signs, 52.3% had dengue with warning signs and 7.7% had severe dengue. Mean serum albumin of 2.66g/dl was seen in severe dengue group whereas a value of 3.65g/dl and 3.06g/dl was seen in dengue without warning signs and dengue with warning signs respectively. Mean CRP of severe dengue group was 98.84mg/L whereas it was 9.49mg/L and 53.60mg/L among dengue without warning signs and dengue with warning signs respectively. Conclusion: Serum albumin and C-reactive protein can be used as potential markers to predict severity of illness in dengue infection.