• Siripen Kalayanarooj and Suchitra Nimmannitya.
• Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health, Ministry of Public Health, Bangkok, Thailand. sirip@health.moph.go.th
• Se Asian J Trop Med. 2005 Mar 1;36(2):378-84.

AbstractA retrospective review of dengue patients admitted to Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health (previously known as Children's Hospital) from 1995 to 1999 revealed 4,532 confirmed cases of dengue infection; 80.9% were dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and 19.1% were dengue fever cases (DF). Among the DHF patients; 30.6% had shock. The majority of them, 66.6%, had a normal nutritional status, while 9.3% were malnourished and 24.2% had obesity as classified by weight for age. Compared with control patients with other diagnoses (excluding HIV/AIDS patients), malnourished children had a lower risk of contracting dengue infection (odds ratio = 0.48, 95% Cl = 0.39-0.60, p = 0.000) while obese children had a greater risk of infection with dengue viruses (odds ratio = 1.96, 95% Cl = 1.55-2.5, p = 0.000). The clinical signs, symptoms and laboratory findings of dengue were almost the same among the 3 groups of malnourished, normal, and obese patients. The minor differences observed were that in obese children liver enlargement was found less often; maculopapular/convalescence rash and elevations of alanine aminotransferase were found more often. Malnourished patients had a higher risk of developing shock (37.8%) than normal (29.9%) and obese patients (30.2%) (p = 0.000). Obese patients had more unusual presentations: encephalopathy (1.3%) and associated infections (4.8%), than normal (0.5% and 2.7%) and malnourished patients (1.2% and 3.1%). Complications of fluid overload were found more in obese patients (6.5%) compared to normal (3.2%) and malnourished patients (2.1%) (p = 0.000). The case-fatality rates (CFR) in malnourished patients and obese patients were 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively, while in normal patients the CFR was 0.07%. Under and over nutrition DHF patients had either a greater risk of shock or unusual presentations and complications, which can lead to severe disease or complications and probably a higher CFR.

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