In one of the sessions at #LIVES2019 in Berlin, Prof. Frank Van Haren of Canberra Hospital, Australia, presented findings from the Randomised Evaluation of Active Control of Temperature versus Ordinary Temperature Management (REACTOR) trial.

The question which this study aimed to answer was whether there is a reason why fever should be actively prevented and treated in all critically ill patients without an acute brain pathology.

It’s unclear whether fever is harmful or helpful in ICU patients.

In a paper from Young et al. (2012), study researchers looked at two big databases – one from the UK and one from Australia/New Zealand, with more than 600,000 patients and evaluated the peak temperature in the first 24 hours of ICU admission.

Findings showed that in patients who had an infection, fever or an increased peak temperature reduced the odds of dying whereas in patients who had no infection, an increased temperature or fever in the first 24 hours of ICU admission increased the odds of dying.

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