Pyrexia in hospitalised spinal cord injury patients

Abstract

To discover the frequency of pyrexia in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients in the Hospital for Medicine of the Locomotor System (HMLS/SARAH), a review study was undertaken. For a period of 3 months, all new episodes of fever were recorded. During the study 221.3 patients/month were observed. The age ranged from 14 to 60 years and time of lesion from 1 to 6,264 days: 85 patients were paraplegia or paraparetic, and 44 tetraplegic or tetraparetic. At the beginning of the study 10.8% of the patients had fever. During follow up, we observed a rate of 33.9 new incidences per 100 patients/month. In 77.3% only one cause was identified, and in 8% no cause could be defined. The commonest causes were urinary tract infection (UTI) (44.3%), and soft tissue infections (11.4%). Frequent causes of fever in the acute stage other than UTI were complications related to the initial trauma and thromboembolic disease (p < 0.05). These results demonstrate the high incidence of fever in patients with SCI, in addition to providing a useful approach for diagnosis and management.