Typhoid fever complicated by acute renal failure and hepatitis: case reports and review

Four cases of typhoid fever complicated by both acute oliguric renal failure and hepatitis are presented. Two patients had type II hepatitis according to criteria proposed by Khosla et al. (30) with hepatomegaly, hyperbilirubinaemia and markedly elevated asparate transaminase (AST); the others had type III hepatitis, characterized clinically and biochemically by profound jaundice, hepatomegaly, hepatic encephalopathy (one case only), hyperbilirubinemia and markedly elevated serum AST. Renal biopsy was not performed in any of our patients. However, a combination of proteinuria and abnormal urinary sediments containing red cell casts and granular casts, as noted in these patients, is considered highly suggestive of glomerulonephritis. Although isolated renal failure and hepatitis with hepatomegaly and deranged liver enzyme values have been reported previously in typhoid fever, their occurrence simultaneously in the same patient in distinctly rare, having been reported only twice in the English language literature.