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Observational Study
. 2018 Jun;97(24):e10986.
doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000010986.

Clinical analysis of 215 consecutive cases with fever of unknown origin: A cohort study

Yong-Zhi Zhai  1 , Xin Chen, Xin Liu, Zhi-Qiang Zhang, Hong-Ju Xiao, Gang Liu
Affiliations
Observational Study

Clinical analysis of 215 consecutive cases with fever of unknown origin: A cohort study

Yong-Zhi Zhai et al. Medicine (Baltimore). 2018 Jun.

Abstract

Fever of unknown origin (FUO) is a frequently observed phenomenon in clinical practice. The present study was aimed to investigate potential causes of FUO, thereby improving clinical diagnosis of this disorder.In this retrospective study, clinical data were collected from 215 patients who were diagnosed with FUO between January 2009 and December 2010, and an 18 to 36 months follow-up visit was also performed for these patients.Among these FUO cases, the most common causes of the disease were infectious diseases (IDs) (42.3%), followed by connective tissue diseases (CTDs) (32.1%), miscellaneous (Mi) (10.7%) and neoplasm (N) (6.5%), while the causes for the other 18 cases (8.4%) were still unknown. The most common types of ID, CTD, and N were tuberculosis (16/91, 17.6%), adult onset Still disease (AOSD) (37/69, 53.6%) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (6/14, 42.9%), respectively.IDs still represent the most common causes of FUO. Regularly intermittent fever with urinary infections and irregularly intermittent fever with infective endocarditis may be regarded as some signs in clinical diagnosis of FUO.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Diagnostic categories of patients with FUO in north China during the last 2 decades. CTDs = connective tissue diseases, IDs = infectious diseases, Mi = miscellaneous, N = neoplasm, U = undiagnosed.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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