Suryaprakasa Rao Salla 1 , Prasanth Raghupatruni 2 , Rakesh Yerra 3 , Tarun Prudvi Betha 4
BACKGROUND Pyrexia of Unknown Origin (PUO)/Fever of Unknown Origin (FUO) was defined in 1961 by Petersdorf RG and Beeson PB2 as the following- A temperature greater than 38.3°C (101°F) on several occasions; more than 3 weeks' duration of illness; and failure to reach a diagnosis despite 1 week of inpatient investigation. The aim of the study is to study the spectrum of cases of Pyrexia of Unknown Origin (PUO)/Fever of Unknown Origin (FUO) in a tertiary care hospital in coastal Andhra Pradesh. MATERIALS AND METHODS All patients with PUO admitted under the Department of General Medicine in the NRI Institute of Medical Sciences (Anil Neerukonda Hospital) Sangivalasa, Visakhapatnam, during the period from 1st September, 2016, to 31st August, 2017, and who fulfil inclusion and exclusion criteria of classic PUO defined by Durrack and AC street1 were selected for the study. RESULTS The present study included 34 patients with pyrexia of unknown origin in which the patients’ age ranged from 15 years to 77 years. Most of the cases, 41.2% were in the age group 21 to 40 years and 35.3% in the age group 41 to 60 yrs. This indicates PUO is common in middle age group in our study. CONCLUSION Noninfectious causes like collagen vascular disease and neoplasms are becoming important differential diagnosis. But, in India, infections like tuberculosis, enteric fever are still the most common cause of FUO.
