Renu Mathew et al A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON METHODS FOR DIAGNOSIS OF ENTERIC FEVER

Introduction: Enteric fever continues to be a global health problem and isolation of organism from blood is the gold standard for the diagnosis. Objectives: Aim of this study was to find out the usefulness of three different methods such as blood culture, clot culture & Widal test for diagnosis of enteric fever. Materials & Methods: Total number of blood samples collected was 290 from patients with pyrexia for blood culture, clot culture and Widal test. Results: Among the 290 cases studied, 117 patients were positive for enteric fever with either positive Widal test and or with culture positivity. Culture was positive in 40 patients (34%). Out of 117 positive cases of enteric fever, 89 (76%) had typhoid fever and 28 (24%) patients had paratyphoid fever. This was on the basis of significant Widal titers and isolation of Salmonella from blood or clot. Significant Widal titers were seen in 96 patients. Discussion: The sensitivity and specificity of clot culture were 95% and 100% respectively and both blood culture and clot culture had shown the same rate of isolation. Advantage of clot culture is that it can be done with the sample taken for Widal test. The sensitivity and specificity of the Widal test were 47.5% and 69.2% respectively and Widal test done on convalescent-phase serum gave more reliable results. Conclusion: Blood culture and clot culture had more importance when compared to Widal test for the diagnosis of enteric fever.