Abstract:

Objective To investigate the clinical feature, treatment and prognosis of severe hand-foot-mouth disease without typical skin lesions. Methods Clinical data from 24 patients with severe hand-foot-mouth disease without typical skin lesions collected from January 2010 to May 2010 were retrospectively analyzed. Results There were 17 males and 7 females among the 24 patients. Of them, 3 patients with positive EV71 showed no skin lesions at the first visit, 2 presented with only herpes of mouth, 3 with only skin rashes in gluteal regions, 5 with only skin rashes on the palms, 2 with only skin rashes of the knees, 9 with skin rashes in hands, feet and gluteal regions simultaneously. The skin rashes were sparse with an atypical distribution. Fever occurred in all the 24 patients and lasted 6 - 7 days. Nervous system was involved in all the patients, and pulmonary hemorrhage occurred in 4 patients. RT-PCR and real-time PCR showed that the pharyngeal swab was positive for EV71 in 13 patients, for CoxA16 in 2, for other enterovirus in 3, and feces samples were positive for EV71 in 9 patients, for CoxA16 in 1, for other enterovirus in 2. Five patients were positive for EV71 in both pharyngeal swab and feces samples. Four patients died of multiple organ failure, the other 20 patients were cured and discharged from hospital. Conclusions The major pathogen causing severe hand-foot-mouth disease is EV71 in the 24 patients; children under 2 years are liable to this disease; high fever is common with various rashes. Early recognition of atypical skin lesions and timely management are most important for the control of severe hand-foot-mouth disease and improvement in overall survival of patients with this entity.

Key words: hand-foot-mouth disease