Scrub typhus-associated acute kidney injury: A study from a South Indian Tertiary Care Hospital

Infections including scrub typhus contribute to a significant proportion of community-acquired acute kidney injury (AKI) in the tropics. Scrub typhus infection now requires global attention since disease outbreaks are being reported across continents. We intended to study the clinical profile, renal involvement, and parameters predicting renal involvement in scrub typhus infection. This is a retrospective study. The medical records of all patients who were admitted and treated for scrub typhus infection for a study period of two years (from September 2015 to August 2017) were analyzed, and salient clinical features and laboratory results were collected from the hospital data. Statistical analysis was done from the collected data. Our study had 272 patients including 81 children. Adults constituted 70.96% (n = 193) and the remaining 29.04% (n = 81) were pediatric population. Among adults, females constituted 62.7% (n = 121) and males 37.3% (n = 72). The mean age of the adult population was 45.7 ± 15 years and that of pediatric patients was 8.56 ±5.1 years. 18.7% of adult cases and 3.70% of pediatric cases had AKI. Renal replacement therapy was required in 3.67% of adult cases. Mortality was 4.14% in adults and 1.23% in children. Hypotension, pulmonary involvement, central nervous system involvement, multiorgan dysfunction syndrome, increased total counts, elevated aspartate transaminase levels, and hypoalbuminemia predicted AKI in our adult population. Scrub typhus should be considered as a differential in cases presenting with fever and AKI. Outcomes of scrub typhus infection in terms of mortality seem to be improving in this region.