All issues > Volume 20(4); 1977

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1977;20(4):285-289. Published online April 30, 1977.

Clinical Observation of Diphtheria.

June Chull Kim¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, Chonnam University Medical School, Korea.

Abstract

The auther observed 51 cases of diphtheria admitted to the Department of Pediatrics and E.N.T. of Chonnam University Medical School Hospital from Jan. 1970 to June 1975. The highest seasonal incidence was from November to February, and the age incidence was highest in the 4 to 9 year range with the sex ratio of male 1.5 to female 1. 62.7% of the patients were laryngeal and 35.3% were pharyngeal in type of the disease. Most of the patients admitted to the hospital 5 days after the symptoms manifested. The presenting complaints were in sequence of dyspnea(84.3%), restlessness (78.4%), High fever (64.7%), cough(62.7%) and hoarseness (60.8%). The pseudomembrane was detected in 54.9% of the cases, and 52.9% of the case revealed positive results on the smear preperations taken from nasopharynx. On the peripheral blood counts, 75.6% of the patients had mild to moderate degree of anemia and 81.8% of the cases showed leukocytosis. The electrocardiogram obtained at the time of admission revealed abnormality in 54.5% of the cases. As complications, proteinuria (27.4%), myocarditis (5.8%), bullneck (5.8%), palatal paralysis (1.9%) and phrenic nerve paralysis (1.9%) were detected. 9 cases (17.6%) were expired, 6 of those were laryngeal type and other 3 were pharyngeal type.

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