Different Clinical Manifestations of Dengue Fever

Document Type : Original research articles

Authors

1 Tropical Medicine and Gastroenterology Department, Faculty of Medicine, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt

2 ENT Department, Faculty of Medicine, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt

3 Audiovestibular Unit, ENT Department, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, Elminia, Egypt

4 Chest diseases and tuberculosis Department, Faculty of Medicine, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt

5 Clinical and Chemical Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt

6 Undergraduate Medical Student, Faculty of Medicine, South Valley National University, Qena, Egypt

7 Undergraduate Medical Student, Faculty of Medicine, King Salman International University, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Dengue fever is a widespread mosquito borne infection transmitted by Aedesa egypti arthropod.
Objectives to assess the clinical manifestations of gastrointestinal, cochleovestibular, and respiratory systems in patients with Dengue fever and to analyze the variables that affect it.
 Patients and methods: a prospective cohort study, 100 dengue fever patients were assessed  for different clinical presentations of dengue fever. Laboratory and imaging investigations were repeated after one and three months.
Results: The mean age was 37.97±16.1 years. Apart from watery diarrhea, there was clinical improvement in GIT symptoms as abdominal pain, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, splenomegaly and ascites after three months during follow up (P 0.003). Four (4%) patients presented with hearing loss and tinnitus after the onset of fever. Two of them (2%) had bilateral mild sensorineural hearing loss, and two (2%) had unilateral sudden profound sensorineural hearing loss. Four patients (4%) complained of tinnitus only pure tone audiometry revealed mild to moderate high frequency sensorineural hearing loss during examination. On one and three month follow-ups, most of those patients show no improvement. As regards respiratory manifestations, twenty-eight (28%) patients presented with respiratory symptoms. The most common symptom was dyspnea seen in 26 (26%) patients, cough in 22 (22%) patients, and hemoptysis in 1 (1%) patient.
Conclusion: Patients with serologic dengue infection may present typical GI manifestations such as nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. While atypical GI manifestations were splenomegaly and ascites. Also, concomitant cochleovestibular and respiratory symptoms that were reported for the first time. Their outcome was heterogeneous.

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