A study on correlation of gall bladder wall thickness with severity of Dengue fever

Abstract

Background: Dengue is an acute viral infection with potentially fatal complications. This study was done to describe the correlation of Gall bladder wall thickness with severity of Dengue fever and to predict the fatal outcome of Dengue fever at the earliest to prevent serious consequences by timely interventions.Methods: This was a hospital based prospective observational study conducted at Niloufer Hospital, a tertiary care pediatric hospital attached to Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad, Telangana, India from October 2017 to November 2018. All children between 1 year to 12 years of age that had clinical features of dengue and who were serologically confirmed were included in this study.Results: Age group most commonly affected was 5-8 years with maximum number of dengue cases without warning signs (55.7%). Majority of severe dengue cases (64.3%) had gall bladder wall thickness >5mm. The correlation between severity of dengue and gall bladder wall thickness was found to be highly significant indicating the higher the severity of dengue more the gall bladder thickness.Conclusions: This study concludes gallbladder wall thickness (GBWT) measured by ultrasonography can be used in children for early prediction of the severity of DHF in children and authors can include gall bladder wall thickness as an admission criteria during epidemics.