Immediate postoperative fever in a patient with scoliosis: Case report and literature review

Abstract Background: Fever is a common clinical symptom in patients with postoperative scoliosis. However, there are rare reports of fevers occurring immediately following operative procedures.Case presentation: A 15-year-old female with a 1-year history of scoliosis was admitted to the hospital after a health examination. The patient was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis and underwent a posterior idiopathic scoliosis procedure and correction for pedicle fixation. Clinical symptoms, including chills, fever, increased heart rate and increased blood pressure, were observed immediately following surgery during anesthesia recovery. However, this study did not monitor for temperature-change data over time during the whole intraoperative period. The patient was discharged 12 days after the operation, and no chills or fever (≥38°C) occurred during the 90-day follow-up, and no delayed infection during the over three years of follow-up. A systematic review of the literature on this subject was performed.Conclusions: Immediate postoperative fever may be a self-limiting or self-regulating process in patients with scoliosis. The treatment intervention should be circumspect when patients experience such symptoms without clinical evidence because they may not have serious outcomes. Our case provides insufficient clinical evidence to determine whether this condition is due to transfusion reaction, or anesthesia inhibition.