Clinical characterization of an epidemic dengue outbreak in ¨Luis Diaz Soto ¨ central military hospital

INTRODUCTION: when faced with a febrile patient, the suspicion of dengue depends on the clinical elements, so it is necessary to have good knowledge of the symptoms and signs of this disease. OBJECTIVE: to determine the febrile pattern of these patients, to define the most frequent symptoms and signs and to characterize the shift of the hematological parameters. METHODS: a retrospective, observational and cross-sectional study was conducted. It included those patients admitted to ¨Luis Díaz Soto¨ military hospital wards, who were suspected of dengue in the period of November 2013 to February 2014. They were divided into 2 groups according to the positivity or negativity results of the IgM testing (IgM+, IgM-). Both groups were compared on account of clinical and laboratory variables. RESULTS: seventy five patients were tested; 38 showed positive to IgM. The IgM-positive group fever lasted 3.3 days as average (SD 1.11) compared to that of the IgM-negative group with 2.9 days (SD 1.44). The febrile curve was similar in both groups. Headache (38 cases, 100%), retrorbital pain (28, 73.7%) and arthromyalgia (34, 89.5%) were the most frequently observed symptoms. The positive tourniquet test was the only predominant sign in these patients. The leukocyte and platelet count was lower in IgM-positive patients. CONCLUSIONS: fever behaved in a similar way as in other unspecific virus epidemics. The Rumpel-Leede tourniquet test was the only clinical element that significantly related to dengue. The leukocyte and platelet counts were lower in dengue patients.