Fever of Unknown Origin in Children: A Single Center Experience from Southern Türkiye

Abstract

Objective: It is aimed to determine the etiology, clinical features and short-term prognosis in pediatric patients with fever of unknown origin (FUO). The study included patients with a history of fever lasting more than a week with a fever >38.3°C despite being hospitalized for eight days and more or examined in the outpatient clinic. Material and Methods: Study is performed in Adana City Training and Research Hospital between January 2018-September 2021. Patients' diseases were investigated in four groups according to etiological causes, including infectious diseases, non-infectious inflammatory diseases, malignant diseases and others. Results: Of 65 patients, 34% were female, 66% were male. Forty percent of the patients had infectious diseases, while 33.8% were included in the non-infectious inflammatory diseases group. Sixteen point nine percent of patients had malignant diseases. The most common infectious disease was tuberculosis (23%), the most common non-infectious inflammatory disease was juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) (20%) and leukemia (9.1%). The shortest mean time of diagnosis was 10 days for infectious diseases. The group with the least antipyretic response was the malignant group (27%). Invasive examinations aided the diagnosis of diseases with a rate of 37%. Conclusion: Despite advanced diagnostic tests and increasing clinical experience, FUO is a disease that remains uppermost important, and infectious diseases rank first among the causes of FUO.