Abstract
Background:: Dengue infections may present with neurological complications. Whether these are due to neuromuscular disease or electrolyte imbalance is unclear. Materials and Methods:: Eighty-eight patients of dengue fever required hospitalization during epidemic in year 2010. Twelve of them presented with acute neuromuscular weakness. We enrolled them for study. Diagnosis of dengue infection based on clinical profile of patients, positive serum IgM ELISA, NS1 antigen, and sero-typing. Complete hemogram, kidney and liver functions, serum electrolytes, and creatine phosphokinase (CPK) were tested. In addition, two patients underwent nerve conduction velocity (NCV) test and electromyography. Results:: Twelve patients were included in the present study. Their age was between 18 and 34 years. Fever, myalgia, and motor weakness of limbs were most common presenting symptoms. Motor weakness developed on 2nd to 4th day of illness in 11 of 12 patients. In one patient, it developed on 10th day of illness. Ten of 12 showed hypokalemia. One was of Guillain-Barr syndrome and other suffered from myositis; they underwent NCV and electromyography. Serum CPK and SGOT raised in 8 out of 12 patients. CPK of patient of myositis was 5098 IU. All of 12 patients had thrombocytopenia. WBC was in normal range. Dengue virus was isolated in three patients, and it was of serotype 1. CSF was normal in all. Within 24 hours, those with hypokalemia recovered by potassium correction. Conclusions:: It was concluded that the dengue virus infection led to acute neuromuscular weakness because of hypokalemia, myositis, and Guillain-Barr syndrome. It was suggested to look for presence of hypokalemia in such patients.
Copyright
Association for Helping Neurosurgical Sick People. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Derivative-Non Commercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit.
Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License, which permits unrestricted reproduction and distribution, for non-commercial purposes only; and use and reproduction, but not distribution, of adapted material for non-commercial purposes only, provided the original work is properly cited.
