Typhoid and paratyphoid fever: a retrospective study.

Sixty-eight proved cases of typhoid and paratyphoid fever were reviewed in a retrospective study covering 5 years (1986-1990). Patients within the age range of 10 to 39 years constituted 82.3 per cent of cases and there was equal incidence in both sexes. The mean duration of illness before presentation was 9.67 days. The major clinical features were fever (97%), abdominal tenderness (-9.4%), headache and abdominal pain (70.58%) each). Intestinal perforation was the commonest complication (27.9%) with a male preponderance (M:F-3:1). Perforation occurred after the first week of illness in 73.7 per cent of cases. Fourteen out of the nineteen patients who perforated were not on therapy at the time of perforation and they constituted 80 per cent of those cases of mortality in which perforation played a role. Surgical management of perforation gave better results than conservative management (mortality rates of 16.7% and 40% respectively). Salmonella was sensitive to Chloramphenicol in all the cases where the organism was grown. There were 10 recorded deaths (14.9%) of whom 60 per cent (i. e. 6 patients) presented after two weeks of illness.