Dengue is asyndrome and it clinical outcome depends on the viral metabolic andimmunological host factors interaction (
1). Changes in lipid profile are well established in patients with dengue (
2-5)
but the associations of circulating lipid alterations withimmunological factors in dengue infection remains uncertain. It has beenproposed that some cytokines such TNF-α IL-1β and IL-6 are possiblyresponsible for changes in serum lipid levels (
2-4)
but so far not association has been demonstrated in dengue infection. In order to investigate the associationbetween serum lipid levels and circulating serum levels of TNF-α in dengue patientswe conducted a study in a secondary-levelhospital located in the northwest of Mexico over a period of 6 months which included adult patients with clinical diagnosisof dengue and classified as dengue fever (DF) and dengue hemorrhagic fever(DHF) according to 2007 WHO criteria for dengue (
6) and confirmed by Dengue Duo NS1Ag and IgM/IgG Rapid Strip Test (SD BIOLINE). Afasting blood sample was withdrawn from each subject on day of admission forthe determination of lipid profile (cholesterol triglycerides LDL and HDL cholesterollevels by enzymatic methods and VLDL cholesterol was calculated by Friedwald’sformula) and serum levels of TNF-α dengue patients with an ELISA kit (eBioscience).As control group 30 healthy adults (>18 years) were selected to matchthe features of gender age to patients group. Control healthy individualswere negative for both anti-dengue IgM and IgG antibodies HIV HCV and nothad previously history of hospitalization for dengue-likeillness. However for determine the TNF-α and lipid serum levels we discard ashealthy control any person presenting history of inflammatory and chronic degenerativedisorders or other severe medical conditions associated with changes in levelsof TNF-α and the lipid profile. This study wasauthorized by ethics committee from the Hospital General de CuliacánSinaloa “Bernardo J. Gastelum” and informed consent was obtained from patients and controls. Statistical analysis wasdone using one-way ANOVA and the Bonferroni’s post hoc test and Pearson’scorrelation test were estimated forcorrelated TNF-α level with the lipid profile and the unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction to comparedTNF-α level between dengue cases and healthy control subjects. Two-tailedp-values <0.05 were considered statistically significant.