SynthesisBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2022
Fever therapy in febrile adults: systematic review with meta-analyses and trial sequential analyses.
Synthesis in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Beneficial and harmful effects of tricyclic antidepressants for adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review with meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis.BMJ mental health · 2024Pooled it
- Refined trial sequential analysis for meta-analyses with few studies.Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C, Applied statistics · 2026Article
- Effects of Sedation, TEmperature and Pressure After Cardiac Arrest and REsuscitation on Major Adverse Kidney Events (STEPCARE-MAKE): A Protocol for a Pre-Planned Sub-Study of a Randomized Clinical Trial.Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica · 2026Article
- Nursing management decisions in fever: a mixed-methods approach to understanding.International journal of nursing studies advances · 2026Article
- Temperature control in acute brain injury.Intensive care medicine · 2026Review
- Clinical spectrum and management outcomes of acute febrile illness Among children attending health facilities in northwestern Tanzania, 2020-2021.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
- How Will a Treatable Traits Approach Reshape Clinical Practice in Chronic Cough?Allergy, asthma & immunology research · 2025Review
- Fever management with or without a temperature control device after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and resuscitation (TEMP-CARE): A study protocol for a randomized clinical trial.Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica · 2025Article
- Clinical novel exploration of intractable fever in stroke rehabilitation: a single-center cross-sectional retrospective study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Association of early acetaminophen administration with mortality in surgical intensive care patients: a retrospective cohort study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Largely ignored-but pathogenetically significant: ambient temperature in rodent sepsis models.Intensive care medicine experimental · 2024Article
- Postoperative fever and clinical outcomes after endoscopic surgery for spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage: a retrospective database study.BMC neurology · 2024Article
- Comparison of Wireless Continuous Axillary and Core Temperature Measurement after Major Surgery.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Comparative before-after study of fever prevention versus targeted temperature management following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.Resuscitation plus · 2024Article
- From fever to action: diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of acute undifferentiated febrile illnesses.Pathogens and disease · 2024Review
- Diagnostic accuracy ofFrontiers in immunology · 2024Article
- Good Bug, Bad Bug: What Is Influencing the Fever Response during Infection?American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine · 2023Article
- Temperature control in sepsis.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Review
- Through the Looking Glass: The Paradoxical Evolution of Targeted Temperature Management for Comatose Survivors of Cardiac Arrest.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate the effects of fever therapy compared with no fever therapy in a wide population of febrile adults.
designSystematic review with meta-analyses and trial sequential analyses of randomised clinical trials. DATA SOURCES: CENTRAL, BIOSIS, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Embase, LILACS, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection, searched from their inception to 2 July 2021. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Randomised clinical trials in adults diagnosed as having fever of any origin. Included experimental interventions were any fever therapy, and the control intervention had to be no fever therapy (with or without placebo/sham). DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: Two authors independently selected studies, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias. Primary outcomes were all cause mortality and serious adverse events. Secondary outcomes were quality of life and non-serious adverse events. Aggregate data were synthesised with meta-analyses, subgroup analyses, and trial sequential analyses, and the evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.
resultsForty two trials assessing 5140 participants were included. Twenty three trials assessed 11 different antipyretic drugs, 11 trials assessed physical cooling, and eight trials assessed a combination of antipyretic drugs and physical cooling. Of the participants, 3007 were critically ill, 1892 were non-critically ill, 3277 had infectious fever, and 1139 had non-infectious fever. All trials were assessed as being at high risk of bias. Meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis showed that the hypothesis that fever therapy reduces the risk of death (risk ratio 1.04, 95% confidence interval 0.90 to 1.19; I
conclusionsFever therapy does not seem to affect the risk of death and serious adverse events. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42019134006.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.