Dengue infection is a major vector-borne disease. The classical sings and symptoms of this infection
include high fever, violent headache, chill and rash. However, there are a number of atypical forms of dengue
infection including those presented with severe liver dysfunction. Sporadic case reports of dengue hepatic
encephalopathy are documented in Thailand. Here, the author presents a summative study on the clinical
presentation and outcome among Thai patients with dengue encephalopathy in the previous studies. A literature
review on the prospective studies concerning dengue hepatic encephalopathy in Thailand was performed. According
to this study, 4 reports covering 19 cases (12 females and 7 males) of dengue encephalopathy among the Thai can be
detected. The summative on clinical presentation of all patients are presented in Table 1. The average age (mean ±
SD) of all subjects is 8.0 ± 3.0 (range = 2-13 years old). Classified by grade on dengue infection, there are 14 grade
IV, 4 grade III and 1 grade II. Most of the hepatic encephalopathy occur in convalescent stage (14 cases, 73.7 %).
Concerning the depth of hepatic encephalopathy, there are 8 level IV, 6 level III, 4 level II and 1 level I. Of 16
known cases, the duration of encephalopathy ranges from 0.8 to 26 days (average 8.2 ± 6.6 days). Of 15 known
cases, the liver span ranges from 2 to 6 cm (average 3.7 ± 1.2 cm). Concerning the laboratory investigation, severe
hepatitis (SGOT and SGPT > 200 U/L) can be seen in all cases. Hypoglycemia and hyponatremia can be detected in
6 and 5 cases, respectively. Most of the cases (15 cases, 78.9 %) received conventional treatment and most (12
cases, 63.2 %) recovered completely.
Keywords: dengue, hepatic encephalopathy.
