Weekly Article: Fever

Originally sent by Naomi Hughes

For my article selection I browsed the last few issues or Pediatric Emergency Care and this article caught my eye because the ambiguity of what to do in these 7 week olds with fever. 

This is a small retrospective study looking at fever wtihout a source and rates of SBI in children under 60 days.  Certainly not conclusive, but one more data point to add to your armamentarium when trying to decide what to do in these kids.

The study showed that E.Coli UTI's are common in this age group. No surprise.

They state in their conclusion that H.Influenza and S. Pneumoniae were " essentially nonexistent" in this study possibly because of herd immunity. 

HOWEVER, there was a 52 day old with S. Pneumonia meningitis in this cohort of only 207 patients.

The patient was noted to be irritable and inconsolable - which bumps them out of the well appearing category.  However, I think it stands as proof that we still have to be very careful with this age group in particular.