Drug fever due to oxprenolol

Drug fever

Drug fever is a common condition that is frequently misdiagnosed. It is a febrile response that coincides temporally with the administration of a drug and disappears after discontinuation of the offending agent. Drug fever is usually suspected when no other cause for the fever can be elucidated, sometimes after antimicrobial therapy has already been started. In nonsensitized individuals receiving a drug for the first time, the onset of fever is highly variable and differs among drug classes, but most commonly appears after 7-10 days of drug administration and rapidly reverses after discontinuation of the drug. Early diagnosis may reduce inappropriate and potentially harmful and expensive diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. Rechallenge with the offending agent will usually cause recurrence of fever within a few hours, confirming the diagnosis. Rechallenge is controversial and should be performed with extreme caution, since there is a potential for a more severe drug reaction. We describe the mechanisms in the pathophysiology of drug fever and summarize the results of published case reports on the wide variety of agents that are implicated in causing drug fever. Special attention is paid to the role of antimicrobial agents in drug fever.

Drug fever: mechanisms, maxims and misconceptions

Although drug fever is a clinical entity that has received considerable attention in textbooks and review articles, only recently have such writings been subjected to critical analysis. In the present review, mechanisms responsible for drug fever are examined. In addition, published characterizations of the syndrome are compared with the results of a recently published systematic analysis of 148 cases of drug fever. This comparison identified a number of important areas in which descriptions of the clinical entity in textbooks and review articles are at odds with the clinical profile exhibited by actual cases of drug fever.

Changes in body temperature after administration of adrenergic and serotonergic agents and related drugs including antidepressants: II

This survey continues a second series of compilations of data regarding changes in body temperature induced by drugs and related agents. The information listed includes the species used, the route of administration and dose of drug, the environmental temperature at which experiments were performed, the number of tests, the direction and magnitude of change in body temperature and remarks on the presence of special conditions, such as age or brain lesions. Also indicated is the influence of other drugs, such as antagonists, on the response to the primary agent. Most of the papers were published from 1980 to 1984 but data from many earlier papers are also tabulated.