Little attention has been given to the relationship between fever and the severity of asthma. The authors studied 202 successive admissions of children with asthma over a period of 16 months to investigate the relationship between fever and the clinical course of asthma. There were 38 febrile children (18.8%), who were mostly younger than 5 years. Febrile children had a shorter mean hospital stay than afebrile children (1.7 vs 2.0 days). There were 25 episodes of acute severe asthma (13%): 2 among the 38 febrile children (5.2%), compared with 23 episodes among the remaining 164 afebrile children (14%). Three children, who had very severe asthma requiring transfer to an intensive care unit, were afebrile. Radiological abnormalities (collapse/consolidation) occurred in 13 cases: 3 from the febrile and 10 from the afebrile group. Monitoring body temperature is important in cases of asthma. Febrile children tend to be younger and are more likely to have a less severe clinical course of asthma.
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