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Fever of Unknown Origin in Adults: General Aspects and the Role of Nuclear Medicine

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Nuclear Medicine in Tropical and Infectious Diseases

Part of the book series: Developments in Nuclear Medicine ((DNUM,volume 34))

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Abstract

Fever of unknown origin (FUO) has been defined in 1961 by Petersdorf and Beeson as 1) an illness lasting more than 3 weeks, 2) fever higher than 38.3°C (101°F) on several occasions and 3) diagnosis uncertain after one week of investigation in hospital (5). The criterion of duration of investigation allows the inclusion of the more difficult cases, namely the ones that escaped diagnosis after an initial and appropriate standard investigation for fever. FUO may be caused by more than 200 diseases and is considered as one of the major diagnostic challenges in medicine. Infections, tumours and non-infectious inflammatory diseases account for two thirds of the cases. A so-called miscellaneous group, encompassing drug-related fever, factitious fever, habitual hyperthermia and a whole array of unusual conditions represent about 25% of the causes and 10% to 50% of the cases remain undiagnosed (5, 114-118).

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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Maes, A., Knockaert, D., Blockmans, D., Mortelmans, L. (2002). Fever of Unknown Origin in Adults: General Aspects and the Role of Nuclear Medicine. In: Nuclear Medicine in Tropical and Infectious Diseases. Developments in Nuclear Medicine, vol 34. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1179-3_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1179-3_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5431-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-1179-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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