Intermittent Asymptomatic Fever in a Psoriasis Patient

Jiawen Zhang,1,* Hequn Huang,2,* XiXi Xiong,1 Yan Lu,1 Lorna Martin Kasyanju Carrero,1 Bingrong Zhou,1 Yang Xu1 1Department of Dermatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 210029, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Dermatology, No. 1 Hospital and Key Laboratory of Dermatology, Ministry of Education, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province 230032, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yang XuDepartment of Dermatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 210029, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-13851856794Email yangxu@njmu.edu.cnAbstract: Acitretin, an active metabolite of etretinate, is the most widely used systemic retinoid in the treatment of psoriasis. Several side effects of acitretin have been reported such as teratogenicity, cheilitis, xerosis, dyslipidemia, and photosensitivity. Here, we reported a case of acitretin-induced intermittent asymptomatic fever in a 79-year-old male psoriasis patient. To the best of our knowledge, only one such case has been reported in the literature so far. We report our case to draw clinical attention that acitretin may cause drug fever, which might not be a rare phenomenon.Keywords: acitretin, drug fever, psoriasis