title: Assessment of Dengue fever severity through liver function tests.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the utility of liver function tests (LFTs) for early recognition and prediction of severity of Dengue fever in hospitalized patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  An analytical study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Services Institute of Medical Science and Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore, from September - December 2010.
  
  
  METHODS
  Admitted cases of Dengue fever were divided into 3 groups; mild, moderate and severe increases in aminotransferases. Elevation in LFTs was co-related with good or bad outcome i.e. (survival or complication free stay) or (death or complications). RESULTS were analyzed in SPSS version 18.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Out of the 353 patients with mean age of 37.12 ± 15.45 years, 245 (69.4%) were males and 108 (30.6%) were females. Seventy five patients (21.2%) had mild elevation of aminotransferases (2 fold increases), 265 patients (75.1%) had moderate increases (3 to 4 fold) and 13 (3.7%) had severe (> 4 fold increase). ALT was statistically higher in patients with septicemia, hepatic and renal failure (p-value ² 0.05). AST was higher in almost all complications. Prolonged hospital stay was associated with raised LFTs and greater complications and mortality. AST was found to be twice as much raised as ALT.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  AST and ALT were statistically higher in patients with worse outcome thus can lead to early recognition of high risk cases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pulmonology, Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore.
authors.forename: Asim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore.
authors.forename: Aftab Haider
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Alvi
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine Unit - IV, Services Hospital, Lahore.
authors.forename: Ambreen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Butt
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore.
authors.forename: Arif Amir
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Nawaz
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Gulab Devi, PGMI, Lahore.
authors.forename: Asif
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hanif
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000410:Alanine Transaminase / Q000097:blood; D001219:Aspartate Aminotransferases / Q000097:blood; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003715:Dengue / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008099:Liver / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D008111:Liver Function Tests / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010154:Pakistan / Q000453:epidemiology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D000637:Transaminases / Q000097:blood*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000637:Transaminases; D001219:Aspartate Aminotransferases; D000410:Alanine Transaminase