Dengue fever and prognostic utility of inflammatory markers.

Objective: To determine presence of inflammatory markers i.e. hyper-ferritinemia, elevated lactate dehydrogenase, and liver enzymes in dengue fever and their correlation with different classes of dengue severity, defined by new WHO classification. Study Design: Cross-sectional Analytical study. Setting: Medical Department of Dr. Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi. Period: October 2022 to March 2023. Methods: Conducted in confirmed cases of Dengue fever, after consent all patients were categorized in three i.e. D-W, D+W and SDF groups. Results: 120 patients were included in study. 24 suffered from Severe Dengue Fever (SDF) whereas 28 were in Dengue without warning signs (D-W) group and 68 were in Dengue with warning signs (D+W) group. We found a significant association between liver enzymes (SGPT and SGOT) and dengue severity. SGOT was significantly increased in cases with SDF as compared to D-W and D+W cases (p-value = 0.002). Similarly, ferritin was significantly increased in SDF cases compared to non-severe cohort (p-value <0.001). Using the area under the curve (AUC) of ROC curve, ferritin level (cutoff value of 800), produced a sensitivity of 75% for severe dengue fever. Mean length of stay in patients with non-severe dengue group was 3.63 days vs. 4.3 days in those with SDF (P value 0.002). Conclusion: As dengue is becoming a huge burden especially in developing countries, need to take proper measures to establish disease severity and according to severity resource allocation is cornerstone. Significant higher ferritin levels in severe dengue fever than other dengue groups, observed in our study, making serum ferritin a surrogate marker for dengue to predict the severity of dengue fever.