"Goalpost Fever"

Excerpt

Although certain fever patterns have been associated with specific disease entities (that is, the double quotidian fever of gonococcal endocarditis), their diagnostic usefulness is usually limited (1). We would like to call attention to a fever pattern, the "goalpost fever" (see Figure 1), associated

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with drug reactions. The pattern is characterized by a fever spike on admission to the hospital and again 5 to 7 days later. In between, the temperature is quite normal.

A 48-year-old woman with renal stones and recurrent urinary tract infections was admitted because of intermittent fever and chills. Three weeks before admission the patient was