serum aminotransferases in thai children with dengue infection

Background: hepatic manifestations are one of the unusual manifestations of dengue infection.objectives: we conducted this study in order to study the pattern of serum aminotransferases and sequential changes before and after shock in thai children with dengue infection.patients and methods: children who were clinically and serologically diagnosed as dengue infection and were admitted to king chulalongkorn memorial hospital during a peroid of one year were enrolled. they were clinically classified into a non-shock group and a shock group. the majority of serum aminotransferases including aspartate aminotransferase (ast) and alanine aminotransferase (alt) were obtained within a week after the onset of fever and until 3 days after shock in the shock group. student t-test and median in boxplot form were used for statistical analysis.results: we enrolled 127 children with a mean age of 7.6 ± 3.6 years. the incidence of abnormal ast and alt levels was 97.4% and 50.0% in the shock group, and 91.8% and 44.9% in the non-shock group respectively. 29% and 15.4% of the patients in shock group and only 10.2% and 4.1% in non-shock group had the respective ast and alt levels > 200 u/l. serum aminotransferase levels were significantly higher in the shock group when compared to the non-shock group. ast tended to increase starting from one day before shock and continued to increase within a few days whereas alt was less likely to be affected.conclusions: elevated serum aminotransferases are a common finding in children with dengue infection and the levels of ast are higher than those of alt. patients with shock have significantly higher aminotransferase levels that increase up to 3 days after shock.