Drug fever: mechanisms, maxims and misconceptions

Abstract

Although drug fever is a clinical entity that has received considerable attention in textbooks and review articles, only recently have such writings been subjected to critical analysis. In the present review, mechanisms responsible for drug fever are examined. In addition, published characterizations of the syndrome are compared with the results of a recently published systematic analysis of 148 cases of drug fever. This comparison identified a number of important areas in which descriptions of the clinical entity in textbooks and review articles are at odds with the clinical profile exhibited by actual cases of drug fever.