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Previous Volume 347:1805-1806 November 28, 2002 Number 22 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: Jha et al. (June 6 issue)¹ define hectic fever as a fever characterized by a daily spike in temperature. They state that this finding suggests the possibility of tuberculosis or another systemic inflammatory condition.

To respond to what we regard as an unfounded emphasis on fever patterns in the medical literature in the 1960s, we studied these patterns in more than 300 patients.² We found "hectic fever," defined as a difference between the peak and trough temperatures of more than 2.5°F (1.4°C), in 12 percent of 302 febrile patients. Eleven percent of the patients with infectious disease . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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