Changing Face of Fever of Unknown Origin (FUO): A Single Hospital Study

Abstract

This study was conducted to outline the change in causes of classic FUO over the past 40 years according to the last definition of FUO and to compare it with the previous results from Abbassyia fevers hospital published 1974 by Zohair and Hassan. The study included retrospectively all adult patients admitted to Abassia fever hospital from January 2011 to December 2013. All data about history, examination, investigations and treatment were taken from the admission files. The study results showed: Age of patients was between 17 years and 85 years Male patients were 217 (58%) while female patients were 157(42%) Urban people were 240 (64.2%)and rural people were 134 (35.8%) Non working patients were 257(68.7%) and working patients were 117 (31.3%) The minimum duration of fever was 21 days while the maximum duration was one year. The duration between admission and reaching final diagnosis ranged from 2 days to 30 days GIT symptoms were found in 103 (27.5%) patient followedby chest symptoms 62 (16.6%) patients then joint symptoms 28 (7.5%) patients while urinary tract symptoms found in 13 (3.5%) patients. Patientspresented with fever only without any localizing sign were 83 (22.2%) and patients presented with symptoms of more than one system were 78 (20.9%) There were 53 (14.2%) diabetic patient and 38 (10.2%) patients were hypertensive. Patients who had continuous fever were 211(58.3%) while patients with intermittent fever were 93 (25.7%) and patients with remittent fever were 58 (16%) patients represented with relapsing fever were 6 (1.6%).