Correlation Between Acute and Chronic Inflammatory States, a Case Control Study

Abstract

Abstract Fever is the hallmark of efficient acute inflammatory response, which may be disrupted in chronic inflammatory conditions. “The Continuum Theory” proposes that the return of acute inflammatory states with high fever herald improvement in chronic diseases during treatment. Our objective was to investigate if a correlation exists between chronic inflammation and efficient acute inflammation. In a case control study, the reports of patients diagnosed with chronic inflammatory conditions with at least 6 months of follow up under homeopathic treatment were retrospectively sampled from homeopathic medical practitioners from Greece, India, Romania, and Russia. 20 patients who improved under homeopathic treatment and 20 age matched controls of those who did not improve were selected. The occurrence of common acute infectious diseases with fever during the follow up period was investigated. The Odds Ratio of improving with respect to development of acute infectious diseases was calculated and graphs were plotted to study the pattern in each case. The average age of the cases and controls was 28.4 and 27.9 years respectively. 18/20 cases and 4/20 controls developed common infectious diseases with fever respectively. Odds Ratio of improving with respect to development of acute infectious diseases was 36 (95%, CI: 5.7973 to 223.5513), z statistic: 3.846 (p = 0.0001). In this case control study, appearance of common acute infectious diseases with fever was strongly associated with improvement in the chronic inflammatory conditions.