title: Pyrexia of unknown origin: causes, investigation and management.
abstract: Pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) is a syndrome that has long tested the skills of physicians to achieve a diagnosis in affected patients. By definition, patients included in this syndrome will be more difficult to diagnose as they have already resisted classification during baseline investigations. Furthermore, investigation of PUO requires knowledge of many diseases across a range of clinical specialties, as well as knowledge of less commonly used investigative tools. As both society and medicine continue to change, the aetiology and epidemiology of the diseases that cause PUO also change. For these reasons, it is important for physicians to approach PUO in a logical manner, and for the causes and approach to PUO to be continuously reviewed. In this article, we review the aetiology of PUO and the diagnostic strategies that may be used to investigate it.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Sydney South West Pathology Service, New South Wales Health Pathology, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Beresford
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Sydney South West Pathology Service, New South Wales Health Pathology, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. I.Gosbell@westernsydney.edu.au.|Molecular Medicine Research Group, School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. I.Gosbell@westernsydney.edu.au.|Antibiotic Resistance and Mobile Elements Group, Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. I.Gosbell@westernsydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: I B
authors.initials: IB
authors.lastname: Gosbell
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005335:Fever of Unknown Origin / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans
keywords: FUO; PUO; fever; fever of unknown origin; pyrexia of unknown origin