Cardiac Manifestation in Dengue Fever

To study the cardiac manifestations of the dengue fever.

This one year descriptive study was undertaken at KLES Dr. Prabhakar Kore Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Belgaum under the Department of Medicine. A total of 120 patients with either dengue IgM or IgM and IgG were studied. The assessment of cardiac manifestations was done based on electrocardiogram, 2D echocardiography and cardiac enzymes.

Of the 120 patients, 85 (70.83%) were males and the male to female ratio was 2.4:1. The mean age of the patients was 33.02 ± 12.71 years. The commonest clinical presentation was myalgia (97.5%) followed by fever (92.5%). On clinical examination 33.33% of the patients had petecheia and only 9 patients having active bleeding manifestation at the time of presentation. A raised CK-MB and Troponin I was observed in 33.3% and 26.7% patients ECG findings revealed normal rhythm among 95% with 15.8% of them having an abnormal heart rate. Rhythm disturbance was noted in 5% of the patients with AV block being the most common (66.67%). Cardiac manifestation in the form of myocarditis was observed in 37.50% of the patients with a positive correlation with the severity of the dengue fever defined as by W.H.O. criteria.

Patients with dengue fever are at high risk of developing myocarditis and rhythm disturbance and therefore require a close cardiac monitoring.