LACK OF ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ATELECTASIS AND FEVER

Postoperative fever occurs in many patients. If no infection is found, atelectasis, if present, may be blamed. This study of 100 postoperati ve cardiac surgery patients followed up from day of surgery through th e second postoperative day with daily portable chest radiographs and c ontinuous bladder thermometry was designed to look for an association between atelectasis and fever. The daily incidence of atelectasis incr eased from 43 to 69 to 79%. However, the incidence of fever, defined a s temperature greater than or equal to 38.0 degrees C fell from 37 to 21 to 17%. When defined as temperature greater than or equal to 38.5 d egrees C, the daily incidence of fever fell daily from 14 to 3 to 1%. Using chi(2) analysis, no association could be found between fever and amount of atelectasis. This contradicts common textbook dogma but agr ees with previous human study and animal experiments.