Diagnostic implications and clinical consequences of antipyretic therapy.

It has been suggested that the response to antipyretic therapy might differentiate between fevers due to serious illness and fevers caused by less severe disorders; that neoplastic fevers are more responsive to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs than are infectious fevers; that the metabolic costs of fever can exceeds its clinical benefits; that antipyretic therapy can prevent or reverse febrile seizures in children and fever-associated mental dysfunction in frail elderly patients. This article examines the data on which these assertions are based.