Abstract

Dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS) are life threatening clinical manifestations of infection due to dengue virus. Thrombocytopenia is found to be a common finding in dengue. The clinical features of Dengue fever are due to bleeding diathesis and increased capillary leak. The suggested features contributing to bleeding include thrombocytopenia, coagulopathy and vasculopathy. This study was undertaken to find out the number of platelet transfusion in dengue patients and to assess whether platelets have been transfused according to AABB guidelines. This was a descriptive study over a period of one year conducted in Father Muller Medical College Hospital Blood Centre. Details of the platelet component transfused during this period were collected, which included name, age, gender, unique identification number, ward number, blood group, clinical symptoms and signs, indications for transfusion, platelet count, haemoglobin level, and number of units of transfusion. The total number of dengue patients were 227 for whom 835 platelet components were transfused during the study period one year (January 2017 to December 2017). Patients between the age group of 31 to 40 comprised of 25.6% who received platelet transfusion. There was male preponderance (68.3%), females accounting to 31.7%. Platelet transfusion was most common in patients belonging to O Rh positive blood group (41.4%) and least (0.4%) was in B Rh negative. Patients with petechiae comprised of 7.5%, gum bleeding (4.4%) and epistaxis (4.0%). Out of 227 patients, 50.7% required 4 units of platelets. This study provides an information on platelet component usage in dengue patients. Twenty seven patients (11.9%) had a count of <10000 and the utilisation was as per AABB guidelines which improved their platelet count and overall health condition. Patients with bleeding manifestation accounted to 15.9% and hence received transfusion

Keywords

dengue fever, platelet transfusion