The Evaluation of Clinical and Laboratory Findings of Pediatric Patients Applying with Tick Exposure

Abstract

© 2017 by Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. Objective: Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is the most widespread, tick-borne viral disease affecting humans. CCHF first emerged in Turkey in 2002, and the prevalence of the disease has been found to be increased. Central Anatolia Region is endemic for the disease where sporadic cases or even outbreaks are being observed every year. The study was aimed to evaluate sociodemographic, clinical and laboratory parameters of children admitted due to tick bite and prediagnosis of CCHF and to discuss necessity of repeated blood sampling in asymptomatic cases. Material and Methods: Between January 2014 and December 2016, hospitalized or outpatient pediatric cases ( < 18 years) whom had tick bite in the Infectious Diseases Unit of Hacettepe University İhsan Doğramacı Children’s Hospital were enrolled in the present study. Gender, age, contact region with tick, physical examination and laboratory findings of cases and occurence of CCHF were evaluated. Results: In this study, 74 female (45.4%), 89 male (54.6%), a total of 163 cases were evaluated. The mean age of our cases was 7.49 ± 3.9 years. The most common admission was seen in the month of August. Tick was frequently removed from the region of the head and neck (56.1%). Among patients 6 of whom diagnosed CCHF and discharged without any complication. In patients without CCHF (90.4%) had any symptoms during follow-up and most of them (92.3%) had normal laboratory findings on admission, 3 and 7-10 days. Symptoms such as fever, malaise, vomiting, abdominal pain, headache and rash was significantly common in patients with CCHF (all of them p < 0.001) and they had at least one abnormal laboratory parameter on admission.