RESUMEN
Objectives: Present clinical features of typhoid fever in Lebanon. Methods: Retrospective study of 70 patients admitted to a university hospital center between 1995 and 2002. The criteria for inclusion were a positive Salmonella typhi or paratyphi hemoculture and/or a Widal serodiagnosis >/= 1/160 for O agglutinin, in the presence of evocative symptoms. Results Among the 70 patients, 25 pediatric cases were noted. The patients were aged a mean of 28 +/- 22 years. Average duration of symptoms before the diagnosis was 10 +/- 7 days. Fever were observed in 97% of cases and the other predominant symptoms were abdominal pain [41%], diarrhoea [36%], chills [31%] and headache [29%]. Febrile gastroenteritis was a frequent manifestation in children [52%]. Complications were noted in 31% of cases and were predominantly digestive. Leucopenia was not a helpful diagnostic marker. S. typhi was the most frequent [87%] serotype identified. Resistance to ampicilline was 10%, to cotrimoxazole and chloramphenicol 7% for each and to ofloxacine 2%. One death was reported [1%] of an immunosuppressed patient. Typhoid fever is still an endemic disease in Lebanon and should be systematically evoked in the case of prolonged fever, febrile gastroenteritis and/or headache. The appearance of bacteria resistant to antibiotics makes ceftriaxone or ciprofloxacine the empirical treatment of choice