Wednesday 3 November 2010

MRCP revision battle 41.6: Pyrexia of unknown origin

Petersdorf and Beeson defined pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) as:
  • fever >38.3C on several occasions
  • longer than 3 weeks
  • with no diagnosis reached after 1 week of inpatient investigation

Causes:
  • infections:
    • abscesses
    • TB
    • malaria
    • any other varient...
  •  malignancy
    • lymphoma
    • hypernephroma
    • leukaemia
    • atrial myxoma
  • connective tissue disease
    • RA
    • SLE


Daily spikes: abscess; TB; schistosomiasis
Twice daily spikes: leishmaniasis


On to the final battle of the day - fitness to fly...