Are children with prolonged fever at a higher risk for serious illness? : A prospective observational study
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Date
2023-04-25
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Abstract
Objectives: To describe the characteristics and clinical outcomes of children with fever ≥5 days presenting to emergency departments (EDs). Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: 12 European EDs. Patients: Consecutive febrile children <18 years between January 2017 and April 2018. Interventions: Children with fever ≥5 days and their risks for serious bacterial infection (SBI) were compared with children with fever <5 days, including diagnostic accuracy of non-specific symptoms, warning signs and C-reactive protein (CRP; mg/L). Main outcome measures: SBI and other non-infectious serious illness. Results: 3778/35 705 (10.6%) of febrile children had fever ≥5 days. Incidence of SBI in children with fever ≥5 days was higher than in those with fever <5 days (8.4% vs 5.7%). Triage urgency, life-saving interventions and intensive care admissions were similar for fever ≥5 days and <5 days. Several warning signs had good rule in value for SBI with specificities >0.90, but were observed infrequently (range: 0.4%-17%). Absence of warning signs was not sufficiently reliable to rule out SBI (sensitivity 0.92 (95% CI 0.87-0.95), negative likelihood ratio (LR) 0.34 (0.22-0.54)). CRP <20 mg/L was useful for ruling out SBI (negative LR 0.16 (0.11-0.24)). There were 66 cases (1.7%) of non-infectious serious illnesses, including 21 cases of Kawasaki disease (0.6%), 28 inflammatory conditions (0.7%) and 4 malignancies. Conclusion: Children with prolonged fever have a higher risk of SBI, warranting a careful clinical assessment and diagnostic workup. Warning signs of SBI occurred infrequently but, if present, increased the likelihood of SBI. Although rare, clinicians should consider important non-infectious causes of prolonged fever.
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Funding Information: This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No 668303). The research was supported by the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centres at Imperial College London, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University. RGN was funded by NIHR ACL award (ACL-2018-021-007). Funding Information: This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No 668303). The research was supported by the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centres at Imperial College London, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University. RGN was funded by NIHR ACL award (ACL-2018- 021-007). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Author(s) (or their employer(s)).
Keywords
Child Health, Emergency Care, Epidemiology, Infectious Disease Medicine, Paediatric Emergency Medicine, 3.2 Clinical medicine, 1.1. Scientific article indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus database
Citation
Nijman, R G, Tan, C D, Hagedoorn, N N, Nieboer, D, Balode, A, Zavadska, D & PERFORM consortium 2023, 'Are children with prolonged fever at a higher risk for serious illness? A prospective observational study', Archives of Disease in Childhood, vol. 108, no. 8, pp. 632-639. https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2023-325343