1. INTRODUCTION
Fever is one of the most common symptoms of patients presenting to the
emergency department (ED).1 It is an important
diagnostic problem that concerns all branches of medicine since it can
be due to infectious or non-infectious causes.2Infectious diseases can also progress to serious conditions, such as
sepsis, which can sometimes be fatal. Therefore, it is crucial to
determine the cause of fever to initiate appropriate treatment. In the
initial evaluation of patients presenting to ED with fever, a
comprehensive history is taken and a physical examination is performed
followed by necessary diagnostic tests. In this process, patients with
acute fever of unknown focus are particularly difficult to manage for
clinicians.
In recent years, radiological imaging methods, which have been
increasingly developed, have become diagnostically important for most
patients and diseases. In particular, computed tomography (CT) is an
easily accessible imaging method found in almost all EDs in today’s
conditions. The use of CT in EDs has significantly increased due to the
increase in accessibility to the device, shortening of examination times
with technological developments, and medicolegal
reasons.3 Studies have reported that CT plays a
beneficial role in determining the source of infection in patients with
sepsis of unknown origin.4 However, there is still no
consensus among clinicians regarding the use of CT in patients with
acute fever without clinical clues. Therefore, in this study, we
examined the use of CT in the identification of sources of infection in
patients with acute fever of unknown origin. We investigated whether
there was any predictor of the source of infection in thoracic and
abdominal CT scans undertaken to explore the etiology of fever.