A clinical study of adult Japanese encephalitis in the Chonnam District, Korea, during summer of 1982--a difference between improved and expired cases.

In the summer of 1982, we experienced a great number of patients with Japanese encephalitis compared with the previous years. We have studied 85 adult cases of Japanese encephalitis which were diagnosed clinically and/or serologically. A difference between improved and expired cases was also investigated. We found that deteriorated mental state, elevated SGOT (AST) level, lower hemagglutination-inhibition(H-I) titer, and a more acute onset of the illness were associated with higher mortality. The mortality rate in our cases was 35.3 percent.