26. Fever: Friend or foe in Sepsis, and does paracetamol help?

Fever in sepsis: good, bad or ugly?

Paul Young discusses the history of our interpretation of fever in sepsis and why it may not be a bad thing. We talk about the upcoming HEAT trial which hopes to take us one step closer to seeing whether paracetamol is a beneficial treatment in sepsis. More information on HEAT is here.

Listen directly on here (below), or on iTunes here

Papers that inspired this study include:

Brief history of antipyretic therapy

Fever: blessing or curse? A unifying hypothesis

The adaptive value of fever

Preparatory work for the HEAT study that’s been published includes:

The effect of antipyretic medications on mortality in critically ill patients with infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The effect of antipyretic therapy upon outcomes in critically ill patients: a randomized, prospective study

Fever and antipyresis in Infection: a review

Music excerpt is “Fever” by Peggy Lee which you can buy here

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