Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Case Reports
. 2019 Dec 20:19:e00688.
doi: 10.1016/j.idcr.2019.e00688. eCollection 2020.

Cotton fever resulting in Enterobacter asburiae endocarditis

Affiliations
Case Reports

Cotton fever resulting in Enterobacter asburiae endocarditis

Munib J Francis et al. IDCases. .

Abstract

"Cotton fever" is described as a self-limiting illness following "cotton shooting," the practice of injecting residual drugs extracted from previously used cotton filters. Cases of related Enterobacter agglomerans bacteremia have been described. We report the first described case of cotton fever in a patient resulting in Enterobacter asburiae endocarditis.

Keywords: Bacteremia; Cotton fever; Endocarditis; Enterobacter; Injection drug use; Withdrawal.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors disclose that there were no conflicts of interest or financial support in the development of this project.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic of IV drug use and cotton shooting. (A) Many IV drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, are heated prior to use. (B) The resulting product is filtered through cotton balls to sift out any large particles or debris (C) Syringes are typically used for intravenous injection. (B*) When drug supply decreases, IVDUs may resort to “cotton shooting”, which is the process of injecting trace amounts of drugs that are extracted from previously used cotton filters. IVDUs have described cotton fever as a transient elevation in core body temperature of 2–4 degrees that occurs within minutes after injection.

References

    1. Lansky A., Finlayson T., Johnson C., Holtzman D., Wejnert C., Mitsch A. Estimating the number of persons who inject drugs in the united states by meta-analysis to calculate national rates of HIV and hepatitis C virus infections. PLoS One. 2014;9(5) - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lipari R.N., Hedden S.L., Hughes A. 2013. Substance use and mental health estimates from the 2013 national survey on drug use and health: overview of findings. The CBHSQ report. Rockville (MD) pp. 1–10. - PubMed
    1. Haber P., Demirkol A., Lange K., Murnion B. Management of injecting drug users admitted to hospital. Lancet. 2009;374(9697):1284–1293. - PubMed
    1. Harrison D.W., Walls R.M. Cotton fever": a benign febrile syndrome in intravenous drug abusers. J Emerg Med. 1990;8(2):135–139. - PubMed
    1. Ramik D., Mishriki Y. The other “Cotton fever”. Infect Dis Clin Pract. 2008;16(3):192–193.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources