Fever burden independently contributes to increased poor outcome of patients with traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Objective To investigate the prognostic value of fever burden in traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients.Methods A retrospective analysis of 355 TBI patients admitted to the emergency department and intensive care unit from November 2010 to October 2012 was performed,and the Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) was followed-up 6 months after the injury.The patients were divided into two groups according to the GOS:good outcome group (4 to 5) and poor outcome group (1 to 3).Relevant clinical findings were studied by statistical description,logistic regression analysis,Spearman correlation analysis and ROC curve analysis.Results Fever burden level was continuously increased with the decrease of GOS from score 5 to 2,except for score 1 of GOS,which was corresponding to a significant lower fever burden.There were significant differences in age,pupil reactivity,Glasgow coma scale (GCS) and fever burden between two groups (P ＜ 0.05).Compared to the good outcome group,the poor outcome group was featured with more advanced average age (P =0.000),poorer pupil reactivity (P =0.000),lower GCS score (P =0.000) and higher fever burden level (P =0.000).Univariate logistic regression analysis suggested that age,GCS,pupil reactivity and fever burden level (OR 1.166,95％ CI:1.117-1.217) were associatedwith poor outcome.The fever burden level and the other independent prognostic predictors as age,GCS and pupil reactivity were further included in the multivariate logistic regression model,and the adjusted OR of fever burden level was 1.098 (95％ CI:1.031-1.169,P =0.003).ROC curve analysis showed the respective AUC for fever burden was 0.713 (95％ CI:0.663-0.760).The relevant analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between the fever burden and the GOS score (r =-0.376,95％ CI:-0.462--0.283,P =0.000).Conclusions Fever burden can be considered as an independent predictor of poor outcome of patients with TBI.The TBI patients with early onset of high levels of fever burden will have increased poor outcome risk. Key words: Traumatic brain injury; Fever burden; Prognosis; Risk factor