The evaluation of diagnostic management in young febrile infants
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The evaluation of diagnostic management in young febrile infants at risk for serious infections
IRAS ID
210282
Contact name
Ian Maconochie
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 3 months, 31 days
Research summary
Fever is a common presentation in the emergency department. It often appears in neonates as an innocent viral infection, but in 8,5%-12.8% of the neonates the infection develops as a serious bacterial infection(SBI). Distinguish febrile children with self limiting febrile illnesses or a SBI is hard, as they both present with similar non specific symptoms at an early stage. A SBI could have severe consequences if not treated appropriately. Therefore in 1980 it
was recommended to admit and treat all febrile infants at risk with empiric antibiotics. As a result unnecessarily hospitalisation and prescribing medication were exposed to children with self-limiting illnesses. Unnecessary medication could cause adverse events and do harm to children.
In the recent decades several prediction models and low-risk criteria have been developed to identify children at low risk for a serious bacterial infection. However, the low risk criteria should be used carefully, since they fail to rule out a SBI completely. Despite the developing of criteria and guidelines, there is still remarkable variety in managing the care of children with fever. There is extensive literature on fever in children, but is often out-dated and not focussed on this specific age group. Therefore more work is needed to manage infants with fever accurately at an early stage. This work will see if there are predictors that can help distinguish SBI from viral infection.REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/1522
Date of REC Opinion
10 Aug 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion