The febrile patient: diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic considerations.

Although clinicians have long pondered the diagnostic and prognostic implications and the treatment of fever, fundamental questions remain unanswered. The value of the height or pattern of a fever in predicting the etiology or course of the illness causing it is a case in point. Whether fever is ever harmful and should, therefore, be suppressed is another. These controversies and others concerning the febrile patient are the subject of this manuscript.