Prevalence of Eosinopenia in Enteric Fever: A Single Centre Retrospective Observational Study

Background and Aims: Enteric fever is an acute febrile illness with fever caused by Salmonella species. The diagnosis is confirmed through culture testing. Absolute eosinopenia is a characteristic finding in enteric fever, and a high eosinophil count can effectively exclude this diagnosis. Materials and Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted in our tertiary care hospital over 2 years involving 67 patients. Age, gender, complete blood count, liver function test, renal function test, and positive blood culture for Salmonella typhi/Paratyphi were collected from electronic health records. Statistics were presented with mean ± SD and frequency (percentage) for the continuous and categorical factors, respectively. All the statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS (IBM, 28.0). Results: Of the 67 blood culture-positive patients, 53 had absolute eosinopenia. An average age of 30.7 ± 11.8 years, with ages ranging from 17 to 73 years. Other findings include elevated liver enzymes. Conclusion: The strong correlation between enteric fever and absolute eosinopenia is demonstrated by this study, highlighting its potential as a quick and affordable diagnostic tool. Absolute eosinopenia was present in 79.1% of the study’s patients, which supports the usefulness of this metric in clinical practice, especially in environments with limited resources.