Correlation of Temperature with Platelet Count and Total Leukocyte Count in Dengue: Findings from a Secondary Data Analysis

Abstract

Background: Dengue fever annually affects almost 100 million people globally with 2.5 billion people at risk of developing dengue fever. The symptoms of dengue fever begins with flu like illness and may lead to severe manifestations such as bleeding, sudden loss of consciousness and even loss of life. The treatment of the infection is decided on the basis of severity of clinical features and level of fluids in the body. Objective: To assess the correlation of temperature with platelet count and total leukocyte count in patients of dengue fever. Methods: A secondary data analysis of a randomized controlled trial on the effects of silymarin on hepatic enzymes and clinical manifestation of dengue fever was carried out including only the patients in the placebo group of the trial. The correlation of temperature with platelet count and total leukocyte count was assessed using Spearman’s correlation coefficient. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: The study results revealed that the temperature was significantly negatively correlated with total leukocyte count on day 3 only (p=0.026). Furthermore, in patients with fever duration of 5 to 7 days it was significantly negatively correlated with platelet count on day 3 only (p=0.002) whereas in patients aged 40 years or above it was significantly negatively correlated with total leukocyte count on day 3 only (p=0.025). Conclusion: Raised temperature was found to be significantly negatively correlated with total leukocyte count on day 3 only. Moreover, stratified analysis showed it to be significantly negatively correlated with platelet count on day 3 in patients with longer duration of fever and with total leukocyte count on day 3 in patients aged 40 years or above. Further evaluation of the study findings with a larger sample size is recommended.