Correlation of the Laboratory Findings with a Etiology of Patients Presenting with Fever followed by Altered Consciousness in a Teaching Hospital

Consecutive fifty subjects having fever with altered consciousness admitted into medical wards in Rangpur Medical College Hospital, Rangpur were selected to find out the aetiology and its correlation with laboratory findings of the subjects. Subjects having prolonged fever, (more than 21 days) pregnancy, trauma, drug intoxication, cerebrovascular disease and metabolic causes including liver diseases were excluded from the study. Study revealed that majority of the study subjects were below 39 years (76%) of age and most of them were male (80%). Predominant cases were found to be pyogenic meningitis (44%), followed by encephalitis (32%), cerebral malaria (20%) and tubercular meningitis (4%). Neutrophilic leucocytosis, high cerebrospinal fluid protein, very high cell count and low sugar were a common observation in pyogenic meningitis while very high erythrocytic sedimentation rate was the main findings in tubercular meningitis and high lymphocytic count was observed in encephalitis as compared to other. So it is concluded that subjects suffering from fever with altered consciousness are 1. Predominantly male of young age group. 2. pyogenic meningitis is a predominant cause. 3. Cerebrospinal fluid findings were observed to have usual findings in disease of pyogenic meningitis, encephalitis and tubercular meningitis. doi: 10.3329/taj.v18i1.3300 TAJ 2005; 18(1): 25-29