Nabeela Zia, Sana Jamil, Misbah Noor, Sadia Shabir, Shaffaq Aziz.
Spectrum of Clinical Presentation of Children with Hypernatremia Associated with Acute Diarrhea.
Pak Paed J Jan ;45(3):317-20.

Objective: To determine the spectrum of clinical presentation in children with hypernatremia associated with acute diarrhea. Study Design: Cross-sectional study Place and Duration of the Study: This study was conducted at The Children`s Hospital & ICH, Lahore from November 2018 to May 2019. Material and Methods: Patients aged 1 month to 15 years, of either gender with acute diarrhoea fulfilling the inclusion criteria, were enrolled in study. After informed consent from parents, demographic data, clinical features were recorded on predesigned proforma. Serum sodium level was determined. Data was analysed using SPSS 20. Numerical variables were presented as mean +-SD and categorical variable were presented as frequencies and percentages. Results: Total 155 patients with acute diarrhoea, 79 (51.0%) male and 76 (49.0%) female were included in this study. Duration of diarrhoea was from 1 to 6 days (mean 3.5 +- 1.7 days). Serum sodium level ranged from 132 mmol/L to 188 mmol/L with a mean of 142.1 +- 10.3 mmol/L. Hypernatremic dehydration was found in 26 (16.8%) children. The mean serum sodium level was significantly high in children with hypernatremic dehydration (161.3 +- 10.9 vs. 138.3 +- 3.8 mmol/L; p-value <0.001) and frequency of vomiting, oliguria, seizures and coma was 34.6% (09), 53.5% (14), 38.5% (10) and 26.9% (07) respectively. Conclusion: Significant proportion of children with acute watery diarrhoea had hypernatremic dehydration (n=26/155, 16.8%) with frequent clinical features of vomiting, oliguria, seizures and coma.

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