HsCRP distinguishes between Severe and Non-Severe Dengue in Children: Study

Hs-CRP, being used in this study to assess the level of CRP, has a low detection threshold of measurement as compared to conventional CRP. Hs-CRP has been evaluated in children with asthma, nephrotic syndrome, and type 1 diabetes mellitus. However, high sensitivity CRP (Hs-CRP) has not been studied in children with dengue so far.

Hence, Aaradhana and associates from the Department of Pediatrics, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, University College of Medical Sciences, India carried out this cross-sectional study to compare hs-CRP levels between a group of 31 children under 12 years of age with dengue (positive NS1 antigen and/IgM ELISA for dengue) and healthy comparison group and between severe and non-severe dengue cases. Hs-CRP levels were assessed in sera of hospitalized dengue cases and healthy controls.

Children in the age group, 1-12 years hospitalized with positive NS1 antigen and/or IgM ELISA for dengue was enrolled as cases in the study. 2 mL of peripheral venous blood sample was collected from dengue cases in the plain vial within first two days of admission to the hospital. The hs-CRP ELISA was done using a commercial kit based on two-site sandwich enzyme immunoassay principle (Xema, CRP Ultra EIA, Russia) to assess the levels of hs-CRP.

The following results were found-

6. Median (IQR) hs-CRP levels were 46.59 (34.8, 67.0) mg/L and 0.530 (0.00, 2.79) mg/L respectively in dengue cases and healthy controls which was statistically significant (p < 0.001).
7. Median (IQR) hs-CRP levels in severe and non-severe dengue patients were 46.59 (34.77, 68.43) and 46.67 (24.33, 63.79) mg/L respectively which was statistically not significant (p = 0.85).

Therefore, the authors concluded that "Hs-CRP level was significantly higher in dengue children as compared to healthy controls. But no significant difference in hs-CRP level was found between severe and non-severe dengue patients."