Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine

335-349

Authors: Zhong Wang, Xuezhong Yu, Yuguo Chen, Chuanzhu Lv, Xiaodong Zhao

Sepsis is currently a major problem and challenge facing the medical community. With rapid development and progress of modern medicine, researchers have put more and more attention on sepsis; meanwhile, the morbidity and mortality of sepsis remains high despite great efforts from experts in various fields. According to updated guidelines, sepsis is defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Infection is the initial step of sepsis progression, and development from infection to sepsis is a complex pathophysiological process, including pathogen invasion, cytokine release, capillary leakage, microcirculation dysfunction, etc. which finally leads to organ metabolic disorders and functional failure. According to the latest recommended international guidelines of Sepsis 3.0, the presence of infection and SOFA score ≥ 2 are considered as the diagnostic criteria for sepsis, and the “rescue” measures mainly focus on reversal of organ dysfunction. However, despite nearly two decades of efforts, the “Save Sepsis Campaign” has not achieved satisfactory results. Emergency medicine is the frontier subject of acute and severe illness which treats patients with acute infections at the earliest. If at this stage, physicians can predict the possibility of sepsis progression from demographic characteristics, localize the pathogen and infection, detect the inflammatory storms by tests of cytokines and evaluate the severity of the infection with more effective clinical scoring system, and then take effective measures to prevent infection from developing into sepsis in high-risk patients, the morbidity and mortality of sepsis in patients with acute infection will be greatly reduced. Based on this situation, Chinese emergency medicine experts proposed the concept of “preventing and blocking” sepsis, and launched the nationwide “Preventing Sepsis Campaign in China (PSCC)” nationwide. The main concept is summarized as “three early and two reduces” which includes early detection, early diagnosis and early intervention during the “pre-symptomatic” and “peri-septic” stage in order to reduce the incidence of sepsis and it proposed a new approach for diagnosis and treatment of acute severe infection. This consensus is jointly advocated, discussed and written by four academic associations in the field of emergency medicine and five scholarly publishing organizations. More than 40 experts from fields of emergency medicine, critical care medicine, infectious diseases, pharmacy and laboratory medicine have participated in several rounds of deliberation and finally reached consensus on the criteria of identifying patients with acute infection, taking anti-infective treatments, screening of high-risk patients with sepsis, detection and treatment of inflammatory storm, protection of vascular endothelial cells and the regulation of coagulation function, as well as strategies of liquid support and organ function protection etc. The consensus summarizes the commonly used clinical diagnosis criteria and treatment measures of sepsis both in Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine for clinicians in order to provide evidence for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

358-365

Authors: Raghavendra Rao, Snehal Nayak, Akhilesh K Pandey, Shobha U Kamath

Objective: To determine the relationship between C-reactive protein (CRP) level and the severity of dengue and the potential use of CRP in predicting acute dengue infection. Methods: A prospective observational study was performed on dengue patients admitted to a tertiary care hospital in southern India. All patients of age above 18 years, diagnosed with dengue were included in the study. The detailed laboratory parameters pertaining to dengue were recorded. CRP levels were estimated and compared between groups i.e. severe and non-severe dengue. CRP cut-off value was detected using the receiver-operator curve. Results: Totally 98 patients with a mean age of 40 years were included. Among them, 11.2% of the patients suffered from severe dengue, 54.1% of the cases had non-severe dengue without warning signs, and 34.7% had non-severe dengue with warning signs. The median CRP was significantly higher in patients with severe dengue compared to patients with non-severe dengue (96.2 mg/dL vs. 5.3 mg/dL). Univariate logistic regression analysis showed that the odd’s ratio (OR) of CRP was 1.053 (P≤0.001, 95% CI=1.029-1.078). CRP at a cutoff value of 21.6 mg/L (0.929 AUC) had excellent sensitivity (100%) and specificity (81.6%) in predicting severe dengue infection. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that CRP (OR=1.089, P=0.013) and ALT (OR=1.010, P=0.034) were statistically significant independent predictors of dengue severity. Conclusions: CRP level could be used as a potential biomarker to predict severity of dengue in adults.

375-377

Authors: Rooh Ullah, Muhammad Suleman Rana, Mehmood Qadir, Muhammad Usman

Rationale: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been recognized as highly pathogenic. The current pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 has been spread globally and infected more than 200 countries. Patient concerns: We report the first confirmed fatal case of COVID-19 in Pakistan. A 50-year-old man returned from Saudi Arabia on March 09, 2020 and presented with cough, fever, malaise, poor appetite and difficulty in breathing to the Pulmonologist at District Headquarter Hospital Mardan. Diagnosis: The patient was initially diagnosed as COVID-19 suspected case. A oropharyngeal swab sample was positive by realtime RT-PCR tests. Lessons: This report highlights the importance of close coordination between clinicians and public health authorities as well as the importance of early laboratory-based confirmation of COVID-19 cases.