Volume : 6, Issue : 3, March - 2017

Children with prolonged fever attending tertiary level health facility in South India :A clinicoepidemiological analysis.

Sheeja Sugunan, Nibin Nahaz, Rajamohanan K Pillai, Santhosh Kumar A

Abstract :

<p>&nbsp;<b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-size:12.0pt;&#10;line-height:150%;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif">Objectives</span></b><span lang="EN-IN" style="text-align: justify; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif;">: To study the changing epidemiology in terms of aetiology and clinical profile of prolonged fever of more than 7 days duration in a tertiary care hospital during a period of 10 years. Method: All children admitted with undiagnosed fever of more than 7 days during the period January 2000 to December 2000 and January 2012 to October 2013.were included in the study and data collected prospectively. <b>Results:</b> 80 children were admitted during the period January 2000 to Feuary 2001and231 patients were admitted&nbsp;&nbsp; during the period January 2012 to October 2013 with prolonged fever. Male to female ratio&nbsp; was 55:45 in 2000 and 51.5: 48.5 in 2012. There were significantly (p&lt;0.01) more children with fever duration more than 4 weeks in 2000 (33.5%) compared to 2012 (6.5%). In both groups infection was the commonest cause of prolonged fever. Dengue fever was noted to be commonest cause of prolonged fever in 2012 (33%), while enteric fever was the commonest in 2000. There were no cases of dengue or scrub typhus in 2000. Malignancy&nbsp; accounted&nbsp; for 5% of cases in both the groups. There was a significant decrease in the number of undiagnosed cases(p&lt;0.01) from 20% in 2000 to 10 % in 2012 and &nbsp;&nbsp;fever lasting for more than 3 weeks also decreased from 33% to 7%. <b>Conclusion</b>: Infection continues to be the commonest cause of prolonged fever in children but the etiology of &nbsp;infection changes significantly in a span of 10 years. &nbsp;Proportion of undiagnosed cases and fever lasting for more than 3 weeks has come down significantly over the years probably due to changing trends in diseases pattern and access to newer diagnostic modalities.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>