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Paediatric emergency departments should manage young febrile and afebrile infants the same if they have a fever before presenting
Author(s) -
Orfanos Ioannis,
Sotoca Fernandez Jorge,
Elfving Kristina,
Alfvén Tobias,
Eklund Erik A.
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/apa.16483
Subject(s) - medicine , bacteremia , meningitis , lumbar puncture , pediatrics , retrospective cohort study , confidence interval , relative risk , cohort study , febrile seizure , emergency department , cohort , cerebrospinal fluid , antibiotics , epilepsy , psychiatry , microbiology and biotechnology , biology
Abstract Aim Our aim was to evaluate the risk of bacterial meningitis, bacteremia, and urinary tract infection (UTI) in infants ≤60 days who presented to paediatric emergency departments (PEDs) after having fever at home. We also investigated any differences between infants who were afebrile or febrile on presentation. Methods This was a multicenter retrospective study of infants ≤60 days presented to four Swedish PEDs during 2014–2020 with reported fever at home. We used relative risks (RR) to compare the prevalence of UTI, bacteremia, and bacterial meningitis between the infants who were afebrile and the infants who were still febrile when they presented to the PED. Results The cohort comprised 1926 infants, and 702 (36%) were afebrile on presentation. The prevalence of UTI in the afebrile and febrile infants was 6.1% [95% confidence interval (CI) 4.5–8.2] versus 14.2% (95% CI 12.3–16.2), corresponding to an RR of 0.43 (95% CI 0.31–0.59). In infants ≤28 days, the RR for meningitis was 1.05 (95% CI 0.18–6.23) for afebrile versus febrile infants. Five times more febrile infants underwent a lumbar puncture. Conclusion Infants who were afebrile on presentation underwent fewer lumbar punctures, but they had similar rates of bacterial meningitis to febrile infants. Different management approaches are not justified.