A two-centre collaborative study on clinico-epidemiological profile of a recent outbreak of epidemic dropsy in New Delhi (India) with special emphasis on its cardiac manifestations in pediatric patients

A hundred and six clinically diagnosed cases of epidemic dropsy, admitted i n June to August 1998 to the P-III unit of RML Hospital and the Department of Pediatrics, Safdarjang Hospital, were studied. All of them consumed must ard oil contaminated with Argemona mexicana, confirmed by ferric chloride a nd nitric acid tests. No specific sex predilection was seen. No child was a ffected below the age of 3 years. Pedal edema and reddish hyperpigmentation were the most consistent findings (100 per cent). Frank cardiac failure wa s seen in only 24 (22.64 per cent), yet persistent tachycardia was alarming ly high (104/106, i.e. 98.4 per cent). Notably ECG showed prolonged Q-T int erval in 24 children (22.64 per cent), unrelated to serum Ca2+ level in pat ients with congestive cardiac failure (CCF). Color Doppler echocardiography showed biventricular dilatation in all the 24 patients with CCF. Wide puls e pressure was recorded in two patients only. Mortality occurred in only tw o patients (1.89 per cent). Eye involvement was a late finding. All those w ho survived (i.e. 104/106) recovered completely, except two patients who we re left with sarcoid-like changes of skin telangiectasia.