Study on the use of Multi frequency Bioelectrical Impedance for Classification of Risk of Dengue fever in Indian Children Neelamegam Devarasu 1 and Gnanou Florence Sudha 2 1,2 Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Pondicherry Engineering College, Puducherry, India. (Neelamegam_2020@pec.edu and gfsudha@pec.edu) Abstract: A noninvasive investigation on severity of dengue was conducted on 44 hospitalized Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) patients, Male and Female aged between 3 to 14 years using Multifrequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (MF-BIA). Among the 44 patients, 30 patients were confirmed with NS1 positive at the time of admission, whose blood investigations such as Haematocrit (HCT), Platelet (PLT) count, Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST) level and Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level was taken for classification of risk under low risk and high risk DHF. For comparison, BIA of 53 healthy controls was also taken. Statistical analysis with ANOVA of BIA on healthy controls identifies reactance as a better indicator. Study shows that reactance at 100 KHz gives significant difference (p < 0.27 on day 1) between control and DHF risk groups and also the reactance shows good correlation (Pearson Correlation Coefficient r=0.18) with the blood investigation results which can be used for classifying degree of risk. In addition, statistical analysis of reactance of other fever indicate significant difference with DHF. Keywords: Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, Bioelectrical impedance, Multi frequency. I. INTRODUCTION Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever is a rapidly spreading mosquito- borne small single-stranded RNA viral disease specifically in the tropical countries. It has a wide clinical spectrum with both severe and non-severe clinical manifestations. Dengue manifestation is seen as a rapid decrease in platelet count in parallel with a rising haematocrit level. Additional tests of liver function, glucose, serum electrolytes, urea and creatinine, bicarbonate or lactate, cardiac enzymes, ECG and urine specific gravity are also taken. These techniques are invasive, tedious, and time-consuming. Moreover, frequent blood sampling will cause further injury to the subcutaneous tissue and is risky in critical patients. Hence non-invasive approaches to classify the severity of dengue patients and for prognosis is the need of the hour. Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) is a simple, painless and non-invasive method used for estimating body compositions. BIA technique is used to measure total body impedance, through which body compositions are estimated by statistical correlations [1,2]. BIA provides a reliable estimate of body composition analysis in healthy individuals and in those with a number of chronic conditions [3-6]. Conventionally single frequency BIA systems were designed with arm and leg electrodes, and a separate measurement of body weight [7]. BIA allows the determination of the fat-free mass (FFM) and Total Body Water (TBW) in subjects without significant fluid and electrolyte abnormalities [8]. BIA works well in healthy subjects and in patients with stable water and electrolytes balance and is appropriate with regard to age, sex and race [9]. The effects of hydration status such as extracellular water (ECW), intracellular water (ICW), and total body water (TBW) were measured and the findings were compared with the outcome variables from whole body impedance spectroscopy [10]. In [11, 12] the relationships between TBW and ECW with impedances obtained at different frequencies show marginal advantages compared to using one frequency. The relationship between impedance measurements and body water compartments in patients with advanced HIV disease with Multifrequency BIA and direct calculation from electrical theory offer many advantage over traditional single-frequency BIA [13]. Studies have also been done on the use of BIA for Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever. BIA studies on body composition reveal that it is sensitive on the hydration profile in dengue patients. In [14], the authors observe that any change in the value of reactance (X C ) will indicate the changes in electrical conductivity of the body and this can be used to monitor and classify the risk severity in DHF patients. Multi Frequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (MF-BIA) is used to monitor plasma volume concentration and extra cellular expansion in dengue patients [15]. Measurement approaches using single frequency, multiple frequencies and broadband frequency spectrum signals have been presented for dengue and other diseases [16]. Modeling of hemoglobin in dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever using bioelectrical impedance is analyzed in [17]. However, the model can only explain approximately 42% of the variation in Hb status, thus single frequency bio-impedance stand-alone technique is insufficient to monitor Hb for the DF and DHF patients. A new computational methodology that predicts the diagnosis in Vol. 14 CIC 2016 Special Issue International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security (IJCSIS) https://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ ISSN 1947-5500 International Conference on Advances in Computational Intelligence and Communication (CIC 2016) Pondicherry Engineering College, Puducherry, India October 19 & 20 - 2016 5