Objective To determine the incidence

course

potential risk factors

and outcomes of noninfectious fever developed in patients after aortic surgery.Methods Patients who received operation for aortic aneurysm or dissection in our center from January 2006 to January 2008 were reviewed.Patients who met one of the following criteria were excluded:having a known source of infection during hospitalization;having a preoperative oral temperature greater than or equal to 38.0°C;undertaking emergency surgery;having incomplete data.Univariate analysis was performed in patients with noninfectious postoperative fever and those without

with respect to demographics

intraoperative data

etc.Risk factors for postoperative fever were considered for the multivariate logistic regression model if they had a P value less than 0.10 in the univariate analysis.Results Totally 463 patients undergoing aortic surgery were enrolled for full review.Among them

345（74.5%） patients had noninfectious postoperative fever

the other 118（25.5%） patients didn’t develop postoperative fever.Univariate analysis demonstrated that several risk factors were associated with the development of noninfectious postoperative fever

including weight

surgical procedure

minimum intraoperative bladder temperature

temperature upon intensive care unit（ICU） admission

discharge

and during ICU stay

as well as blood transfusion.In a further multivariate analysis

surgical site of thoracic and thoracoabdominal aorta（odds ratio:4.861;95% confidence interval:3.029-5.801;P=0.004）

lower minimum intraoperative bladder temperature（odds ratio:1.117;95% confidence interval:1.01-1.24;P=0.04）

and higher temperature on ad-mission to the ICU（odds ratio:2.57;95% confidence interval:1.28-5.18;P=0.008） were found to be significant predictors for noninfectious postoperative fever.No difference was found between the febrile and afebrile patients with regard to postoperative hospitalization duration（P=0.558） or total medical costs（P=0.896）.Conclusion Noninfectious postoperative fever following aortic surgery is very common and closely related with perioperative interventions.