Fever is a nonspecific response to various types of infectious or non-infectious insult and its significance in disease remains an enigma. Our aim was to summarize the current evidence for the use of antipyretic therapy in critically ill patients. We performed systematic review and meta-analysis of publications from 1966 to 2013. The MEDLINE and CENTRAL databases were searched for studies on antipyresis in critically ill patients. The meta-analysis was limited to: randomized controlled trials; adult human critically ill patients; treatment with antipyretics in one arm versus placebo or non-treatment in another arm; and report of mortality data. The outcomes assessed were overall intensive care unit mortality, changes in temperature, intensive care unit length of stay, and hospital length of stay. Three randomized controlled trials, covering 320 participants, were included. Patients treated with antipyretic agents showed similar intensive care unit mortality (risk ratio 0.91, with 95% confidence interval 0.65-1.28) when compared with controls. The only difference observed was a greater decrease in temperature after 24 hours in patients treated with antipyretics (-1.70±0.40 versus - 0.56±0.25ºC; p=0.014). There is no difference in treating or not the fever in critically ill patients.

Results of mass neonatal screening in Lithuania L Cimbalistiene, M Smirnova, D Zamkauskiene, J Kasnauskiene, V Kucinskas 5 10-P Service of information on inborn errors of metabolism (SIEM): results of the ¢rst 3 years of a pioneering service in Brazil AC Puga, S Brustolin, C Moura de Souza, T Tubino, L Refosco, R Pires, R Giugliani 5 11-P Cord blood screening for metabolic disease J Till, A Patterson, D Parke, G Fleming, MH Henderson, GTN Besley, JH Walter 6 12-P Plasma acylcarnitine pro¢ling: diagnostic pitfalls are not so rare, even in acute crisis C Acquaviva-Bourdain, S Boyer, D Cheillan, M Piraud, C Vianey-Saban 6 13-P Identi¢cation with 1H-NMR spectroscopy of unknown bands in a thin layer chromatogram U Engelke, R Liebrand Van Sambeek, E Morava, R Wevers 7 14-P Retrospective evaluation for neonatal metabolic screening by GC/MS and MS/MS K Aoki, I Yoshida, T Inokuchi, K Tashiro, M Inaba, A Fumimori, K Matsumoto, M Tananka 7 15-P Analysis of homocysteine and methylmalonic acid in blood spots by tandem mass spectrometry as a second tier newborn screening test for homocystinuria and methylmalonic acidemias Cuthbert CD, Magera MJ, Hahn S, Tortorelli S, Rinaldo P, Matern D 8 16-P Newborn screening for medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase de¢ciency (MCAD) in 8 J. Inherit. Metab. Dis. 28 (2005) Suppl. 1 # SSIEM and Springer. Printed in the Netherlands i 17-P Newborn screening for medium chain acyl CoA dehydrogenase de¢ciency (MCADD) at one week of age: octanoyl carnitine distributions from a multicentre study using electrospray tandem mass spectrometry of underivatised blood spot samples P Phillips, RN Dalton, G Besley, JR Bonham, Y Foo, A Green, M Henderson, J Oerton, C Dezateux on behalf of the Laboratory Scienti¢c Working Group of the UK Collaborative Study of Newborn Screening for MCADD 9 18-P Predictive value, clinical status and genotype of medium chain acyl CoA dehydrogenase de¢ciency (MCADD) ascertained by screening at one week of age using electrospray tandem mass spectrometry of underivatised blood spots: ¢ndings from a UK multicentre J Oerton, M Downing, BS Andresen, M Champion, M Cleary, A Chakrapani, M Sharrard, JH Walter, P Phillips, C Dezateux on behalf of the Laboratory Scienti¢c Working Group of the UK Collaborative Study of Newborn Screening for MCADD 9 28-P Newborn screening for lysososmal storage disorders: evaluation of protein pro¢ling PJ Meikle, CJ Dean, D Grasby, MR Bockmann, AM Whittle, DL Lang, M Fuller, DA Brooks, JJ Hopwood 14 29-P Multiplex direct assay of lysosomal enzymes in dried blood spots using tandem mass spectrometry: application to newborn screening MH Gelb, D Wang, R Desikan, Y Li, F Turecek, CR Scott 15 2. Phenylketonurias and Pterin Disorders 30-P Evaluation of quality of life in adolescent and adult patients su¡ering from phenylketonuria with the questionnaire`Pro¢le of Quality of Life in the Chronically ill' (PLC) M Schwarz, E Simon, J Roos, N Dragano, M Geraedts, J Siegrist, G Kamp, U Wendel 15 ii J. Inherit. Metab. Dis. 28 (2005) Suppl. 1 31-P From`ought' to`is' in phenyl...