Association of Serum Ferritin and Crp with Disease Severity in Dengue Fever

Abstract

Background: Dengue fever is one of the major public health issues and clinical identification of patient who may develop severe dengue is still a challenge.

Objective: to determine the association of serum ferritin and CRP with disease severity in dengue fever.

Material and Methods: The current prospective observational study was carried out at the department of Medicine, Khalifa Gul Nawaz teaching Hospital / Bannu Medical College, Bannu. The duration of our study was six months from April 2023 to September, 2023. Based on the WHO sample size calculator the sample size in our study was 120 patients.  A pre-designed proforma was used to record demographic information’s, co-morbid conditions, hematological and biochemical parameters and inflammatory biomarkers. SPSS version 16 was used to analyze the data. Categorical variables in our study were presented as frequency and percentages while continuous variables were presented as means (±SD).

Results: In our study, a total of 120 patients were enrolled. The severe cases in our study were 24 (20%) and non-severe dengue cases were 96 (80%). The major co-morbid condition in patients of both the groups was hypothyroidism, diabetes and hypertension. By using pearson correlation coefficient method, a significant positive correlation was observed between CRP and ferritin.  

Conclusion: Our study concludes that ferritin can serve as another biomarker apart from CRP for hospitalization of patients infected by dengue and may assist in predicting the severity of the disease in the initial phase.

Keywords: Serum ferritin; CRP; disease severity; dengue fever