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Association of epidural-related fever and noninfectious inflammation in term labor
Laura E Riley1, Ann C Celi, Andrew B Onderdonk
1From the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Medicine, Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Newborn Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Division of Obstetric Anesthesia, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Boston Medical Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts.
Objective:
To investigate the role of infection and noninfectious inflammation in epidural analgesia-related fever.
Methods:
This was an observational analysis of placental cultures and serum admission and postpartum cytokine levels obtained from 200 women at low risk recruited during the prenatal period.
Results:
Women receiving labor epidural analgesia had fever develop more frequently (22.7% compared with 6% no epidural; P=.009) but were not more likely to have placental infection (4.7% epidural, 4.0% no epidural; P>.99). Infection was similar regardless of maternal fever (5.4% febrile, 4.3% afebrile; P=.7). Median admission interleukin (IL)-6 levels did not differ according to later epidural (3.2 pg/mL compared with 1.6 pg/mL no epidural; P=.2), but admission IL-6 levels greater than 11 pg/mL were associated with an increase in fever among epidural users (36.4% compared with 15.7% for 11 pg/mL or less; P=.008). At delivery, both febrile and afebrile women receiving epidural had higher IL-6 levels than women not receiving analgesia.
Conclusion:
Epidural-related fever is rarely attributable to infection but is associated with an inflammatory state.
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