Abstract
Often it is difficult to differentiate environmental from disease related fever in the newborn. Other investigators have suggested that the foot of the overheated infant feels relatively warm, whereas it feels cool in the infant with disease related fever. This study was undertaken to establish the relationship between rectal temperature (RT) and peripheral skin temperature in the normal and overheated infant and to compare it with that relationship in the infant with a fever which is disease related.
A Spectrotherm 2000 thermographic unit was used to measure the skin temperature of the anterior and posterior mid-lower leg. Eighty-seven anterior and posterior paired readings were obtained in 25 normal 2-day old infants whose temperatures were in the normal range (36.44-37.56°C). Three additional paired readings were obtained in 3 infants who were inadvertantly overheated. Plotting average mid-lower leg skin temperature (LT) against RT yielded a correlation coefficient of +0.73. A lower limit confidence band (99th%lle) was then constructed around the linear regression line derived from the data.
Six infants who were known to have disease related fevers were similarly studied. When plotted against the regression line, each infant's LT was found to be abnormally cool (p<0.01). These findings confirm the observation that in the face of fever, the presence of a low LT suggests a disease related etiology.
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Pomerance, J., Liberman, R., Torres, J. et al. DIFFERENTIATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL FROM DISEASE RELATED FEVER IN THE NEONATE. Pediatr Res 11, 540 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197704000-01022
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197704000-01022