title: Fever burden is an independent predictor for prognosis of traumatic brain injury.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate fever burden as an independent predictor for prognosis of traumatic brain injury (TBI).
  
  
  METHODS
  This retrospective study involved 355 TBI patients with Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) ≤14, who presented at the emergency department of our hospital between November 2010 and October 2012. At 6 months follow-up, patients were divided into 5 groups based on Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) and dichotomized to GOS score (high (4 to 5) vs. low (1 to 3)). The relationship between fever burden and GOS was assessed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fever burden increased as GOS scores decreased from 5 to 2, except for score 1 of GOS, which corresponded to a significant lower fever burden. Following dichotomization, patients in the high GOS group were younger, and showed less abnormal pupil reactivity (P<0.001), a higher median GCS score (P<0.001), and a lower median fever burden (P<0.001), compared with patients in the low GOS group. Univariate logistic regression analysis revealed that poor TBI prognosis was related to age, GCS, pupil reactivity, and fever burden (OR: 1.166 [95% CI: 1.117-1.217] P<0.0001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified fever burden as an independent predictor of poor prognosis after TBI (OR 1.098; 95% CI: 1.031-1.169; P = 0.003). These observations were confirmed by evaluation of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for fever burden (area under the curve [AUC] 0.73 [95% CI: 0.663-0.760]).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Fever burden might be an independent predictor for prognosis of TBI. High fever burden in the early stage of the disease course associated with TBI could increase the risk of poor prognosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
authors.forename: Long
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bao
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
authors.forename: Du
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ling
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D019540:Area Under Curve; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D005334:Fever / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015600:Glasgow Coma Scale; D023261:Glasgow Outcome Scale; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012372:ROC Curve; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D055815:Young Adult