Kazi Iman1, Morsheda Khanom2, Azmieri Sultana3, Asma Akhter4,
Naved Yusuf5, Afroza Akhter6
1. Register, Department of Pediatrics, Dr MR Khan Shishu Hospital & ICH, Dhaka
2. Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Dr MR Khan Shishu Hospital & ICH, Dhaka
3. Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Dr MR Khan Shishu Hospital & ICH, Dhaka
4. Specialist, Department of Pediatrics, Bangladesh Specialist Hospital, Dhaka
5. IMO, Department of Urology, Sir Salimiullah Medical College Mitford Hospital, Dhaka
6. Assistant Professor, Department of Gynae & Obstetrics, Bikrampur Bhuiyan Medical College, Munshigonj, Dhaka
Abstract
To evaluate the duration of injection ceftriaxone treatment in children with culture positive enteric fever this cross sectional prospective study was performed on clinically diagnosed uncomplicated enteric fever children aged from 2 to 12 years in the Department of Paediatrics, Institute of Child Health & Shishu Shasthya Foundation Hospital, Dhaka. A total of 30 cases were consecutively included in the study and data were collected by interview, observation and clinical examination. For all analytical tests, the level of significance was set at 0.05 and p < 0.05 was considered significant. The mean age of the patients was 8.4 ± 2.8 years with female (63%) was predominant. Fever was the commonest presentation in all of the patients. Hepatomegaly was detected in 53.3%, splenomegaly in 43.3% and coated tongue in 93.3% of patients. The average duration of fever was 6 ± 0.9 days and the lowest and highest durations of illness were 5 and 8 days respectively. The mean count of WBC, haemoglobin, neutrophil, lymphocyte and platelet count were 5.8 ± 2.1×10³/mm², 10.2 ± 0.9 g/dl, 42.2 ±9.9%, 42 ± 6.8% and 2.2 ±0.5×103/mm³ respectively. All the patients were monitored by their weight, temperature, heart rate and respiratory rate at presentation, after 1, 2 and 3 months, and observed a significant improvement after treatment. The mean duration (day) of treatment was 8.1 ± 1.4. All children recovered completely after treatment and none had clinical relapse. A short (3 days) course of ceftriaxone from the day of defervescence is effective for treating enteric fever in children, without complications and no case was reported as relapse on follow up. However, the study needs to be replicated on larger sample size to reach to a definitive conclusion.
Key Words: Duration of Treatment, Enteric Fever, Injection Ceftriaxone, Culture Positive