Universal prestorage leukoreduction has resulted in decreased fever episodes and antibiotic use after RBC transfusion, with a reduction in mortality [ 4].
If such associations were to be confirmed, experimental studies would be needed to evaluate whether decreasing fever duration with antipyretic treatment could affect patient outcomes.
Although techniques such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, haemodialysis or plasmapheresis are not specifically used to decrease fever, they generally lead to normothermia in febrile patients.
No statistically significant difference was found regarding the period of decreasing fever, of the hospitalization's duration in patients with one, two or more organ dysfunctions with or without of identified etiologic agent.
Bernard et al. [ 10] reported that, in patients with sepsis, treatment with ibuprofen reduced levels of prostacylin and thromboxane and decreased fever, tachycardia, oxygen consumption, and lactic acidosis, but did not prevent the development of shock or acute respiratory distress syndrome, and did not improve survival.
He also points to two clinical studies that have shown that the fever-reducer acetaminophen — commonly sold as Tylenol — decreased fever-associated birth defects, and he suggests that doctors and patients consider the drug's use to treat fevers early in pregnancy.
All included trials reported side effects or adverse events such as paresthesia, weight decrease, anorexia, fever, fatigue, upper respiratory tract infection, somnolence, allergy, and traumatic liver injury.
We compared the duration of the antibiotic course with: 1) the IDSA guidelines that recommend to use the decrease of fever and the need for surgical debridement and, 2) a theoretical duration if a PCT-based algorithm has been applied.
When two Missouri farmers became sick after being bitten by ticks in 2009, and both reported memory loss, decreased appetite, fever, and showed low white blood cell counts, doctors treated the two for ehrlichiosis, a common tick-borne bacterial infection.
For example, microinjection of a COX inhibitor into the preoptic area of rat brain, a region believed to be responsible for thermoregulation, decreased the fever response to LPS suggesting that prostaglandin biosynthesis in that region of the brain is necessary to modulate the thermoregulatory response to infection [26].
