Scrub Typhus - The Most Common Cause of Febrile Jaundice in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Himalayan State.

BACKGROUND: Most common cause of jaundice in south east Asia is of infective etiology. Combination of fever with jaundice can cause diagnostic problem as this duo is present in many infective diseases. Timely diagnosis by simple laboratory investigations can save a lot of time and prevent morbidity and mortality. Our main aim was to determine the most common etiology of infectious jaundice in a tertiary care hospital of Himalayan state and to study their clinical profile.

METHODOLOGY: This was a prospective observational study done in one year. All the patients more than 18 years of age presenting with jaundice with bilirubin >1.5mg/dl were taken. The clinical profile was observed and investigations for etiology were done.

RESULTS: Total number of patients studied were 170. Maximum number of patients were 50 (39.4%) in age group less than 30 years and females outnumbered males with 1.8:1 ratio (64.7% v/s 35.3%). Fever was the most common presenting complaint in 127 (74.7%) patients and most common etiology was scrub typhus with 103 patients (60.6%) followed by hepatitis E in 36 patients (21.2%) and leptospirosis in 9 patients (5.3%).

CONCLUSIONS: Scrub typhus is the commonest cause of febrile jaundice in Himachal Pradesh. The general physicians should be sensitized for the early diagnosis to reduce mortality.