Introduction:

Dengue fever (DF) represents one of the most frequent causes of consultation during the last decade in our country.

Objectives:

To describe the clinical and laboratory characteristics of dengue patients presenting to the ambulatory care unit of a pediatric reference center.

Materials and Methods:

We included all cases of dengue in patients under 20 years of age who presented to the outpatient consultation unit of the Institute of Tropical Medicine between November 2015 and March 2016. Based on a structured collection of data, we analyzed their demographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics.

Results:

1491 cases of dengue were included. The mean age was 12 ± 5 years, 58 cases (4%) were in patients aged <2 years, 438 (29%) aged > 2-9 years and 995 (67%) aged > 9 years (p < 0.01). The sex distribution was similar (fem / masc 1.04: 1). The 1491 patients all had fever (100%). Headache, myalgias and arthralgias were observed more frequently in patients > 9 years old, reported in 79%, 60% and 55%, respectively, of cases (p <0.01 compared to other age groups). In contrast, a rash was more frequent in children under 2 years (36%) (p <0.01 when compared with children over 2 years). Laboratorially, the frequency of leukopenia was higher in those older than 2 years (72% in the group of 2-9 years and 81% in those > 9 years) when compared with those under 2 years (p <0.01). Detection of non-structural dengue NS1 antigen was observed in the majority of cases (84%).

Conclusions:

The predominant age group that consults for dengue is that of children > 9 years. Clinical variables (rashes in infants and algias in children > 9 years old) and laboratory variables (rare cytopenias in infants) were identified depending on the age group. The sensitivity of antigenemia testing was excellent and similar in all age groups.

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