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© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Background: Fever is one of the most frequent symptoms highlighted during medical assistance. Due to this great impact, our study has the purpose of analyzing the demographic and laboratory characteristics of patients hospitalized in our center and identifying predictive markers to make the differential diagnosis between infectious and non-infectious fever. Methods: Our population included 220 children, collected from January 2017 to August 2022, hospitalized for continuous fever (4 days or more in duration with at least one temperature peak ≥37.5 °C) and excluded cases of discharge against medical advice and/or transfer to other operating units. Demographic (mean age at the time of admission, frequency of hospitalization, and mean days of hospitalization), laboratory, and instrumental variables were analyzed in order to find correlation with fever etiology. Results: Older age at the time of hospitalization, family history of periodic fever, fever lasting more than 8 days, and longer hospitalization are strongly associated with non-infectious fever, together with anemia, high platelet count, high CRP and ferritin, and hyponatremia at the time of admission. Paracetamol is the preferred antipyretic treatment. Echocardiogram has shown anomalies in patients with infectious fever, while ECG anomalies were detected in non-infectious fever. Conclusions: Our data underline the importance of predictive markers, such as clinical and laboratory parameters, to differentiate infectious from non-infectious fevers, but further studies are necessary.

Details

Title
Retrospective Analysis of Fever in Pediatric Age: Our Experience over the Last 5 Years
Author
Valenzise, Mariella 1 ; Federica D’Amico 1 ; La Barbera, Giulia 1 ; Cassone, Carlo Maria 1 ; Patafi, Silvia 1 ; Lombardo, Fortunato 1 ; Aversa, Tommaso 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Wasniewska, Malgorzata Gabriela 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Salzano, Giuseppina 1 ; Morace, Carmela 2 

 Department of Human Pathology of the Adulthood and Childhood, University of Messina, 98121 Messina, Italy; [email protected] (F.D.); [email protected] (G.L.B.); [email protected] (C.M.C.); [email protected] (S.P.); [email protected] (F.L.); [email protected] (T.A.); [email protected] (M.G.W.); [email protected] (G.S.) 
 Department of Clinical and Sperimental Medicine, University of Messina, 98121 Messina, Italy; [email protected] 
First page
539
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
22279067
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3059407301
Copyright
© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.