Drug fever induced by antibiotics of β-lactams in a patient after posterior cervical spine surgery-A case report and literature review

Drug fever is a febrile reaction that emerges temporarily with the administration of a drug or a variety of drugs and disappears after cessation of the targeting agent. There are a few previous reports about drug fever, but they pertain mainly to patients accompanied by no surgical intervention. Based on the literature reviewed, drug fever in patients after posterior cervical spine surgery has never been mentioned before; therefore, we present a 56-year-old man diagnosed with drug fever after posterior cervical spine surgery for traumatic cervical myelopathy. Fortunately, his body temperature rapidly came down in 2 days after discontinuing the antibiotics. He was discharged after two more days of observation, and the patient recovered well without any further complaints. Early diagnosis of drug fever may greatly reduce inappropriate and potentially detrimental diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. For patients with persistent fever, if it happened days after surgery, particularly when it is without any infectious evidence, then it is necessarily important to consider a possible reason of drug-induced fever.

Automated summary

This article reported a case of drug fever in a patient after cervical spine surgery, in which the patient's body temperature rapidly decreased after discontinuing the medication and there were no further complaints. For patients with persistent fever after surgery without infectious evidence, it is important to consider the possibility of drug-induced fever.