Computed tomography of the abdomen in evaluation of patients with fever of unknown origin.

Applying Petersdorf's classic criteria for fever of unknown origin (FUO), 75 of 6,654 CT scans were reviewed to evaluate the diagnostic effectiveness of abdominal CT. Twenty-three (29%) of these 78 scans had positive CT findings and 8 (10%) had positive but nonspecific findings. Abdominal exploration or biopsy was carried out in 20 of these 31 patients. In addition, 10 cases with negative CT results were explored. In no case was any gross anatomic abnormality found in these negative cases.