Glossary

Author: Glossary

  • Neutropenic fever

    Fever associated with an abnormally low neutrophil level, usually caused by infection. This condition is treated with empirical antibiotic therapy pending the results of cultures. Neutropenia may be caused by many diseases and conditions, including chemotherapy, radiation exposure, aplastic anemia, bone marrow infiltration from malignancy, and complications of bone marrow transplantation. The risk of potentially…

  • Induced fever

    Fever produced artificially to treat certain diseases such as central nervous system syphilis. Sustained fever of 105°F (40.5°C), or even higher, maintained for 6 to 8 or 10 hr may be induced by medical diathermy or injection of malarial parasites.  

  • Factitious fever

    Fever produced artificially by a patient. This is done by artificially heating the thermometer or by self-administered pyrogenic substances. An artificial fever may be suspected if the pulse rate is much less than expected for the degree of fever noted. This diagnosis should be considered in all patients in whom there is no other plausible…

  • Drug fever

    Elevated body temperatures caused by the administration of a drug. Because fevers are more often caused by infections, rheumatological illnesses, or malignancies, the diagnosis of drug fever may be overlooked initially. Fever triggered by exposure to medications to which the individual has a heightened sensitivity.  

  • Continuous fever

    A sustained fever, as in scarlet fever, typhus, or pneumonia, with a slight diurnal variation.  

  • Parasitic fetus

    A small imperfect fetus, called a parasite, contained within the body of another fetus, the autosite.  

  • Fetus papyraceus

    In a twin pregnancy, a dead fetus pressed flat by the development of the living twin.  

  • Mummified fetus

    A dead fetus that has become dried and shriveled after resorption has failed to occur.  

  • Harlequin fetus

    A newborn with abnormal skin that resembles a thick horny armor, divided into areas by deep red fissures. Affected infants die within a few days. The condition is also known as ichthyosis fetalis and ichthyosiform erythroderma, which were once regarded as separate diseases but are now known to represent different degrees of severity of the…

  • Calcified fetus

    A fetus that has died in utero and become hardened by calcium salts.