When to worry about unexplained fever if you have leukaemia

Leukaemia and its treatments can affect white blood cells, which help the body respond to infection. Fever may be the first visible sign of an infection, but it can also have other causes. The temperature pattern, other symptoms, recent treatment, and blood results help clinicians decide what is happening. Do not assume that feeling otherwise well makes a fever unimportant.

Record when the fever began, how you measured it, and whether it returns. Note chills, cough, sore throat, breathlessness, burning urine, diarrhoea, a new rash, or pain around a wound or catheter.

Use the fever plan given by your haematology or oncology team. Call the named contact promptly and tell them your temperature, symptoms, diagnosis, current medicines, and the date of your last treatment. Follow their advice about repeat measurements and assessment. Avoid taking fever-reducing medicine to mask the symptom unless your team has told you to use it, because this can make the pattern harder to judge.

Seek urgent medical help for fever with confusion, fainting, severe weakness, trouble breathing, chest pain, blue lips, inability to keep fluids down, or rapidly worsening symptoms. Also seek immediate advice if you have shaking chills or a new infection symptom. Take your treatment details and medicine list with you, and tell the service that you have leukaemia.

Ask which temperature reading should trigger a call, who to contact outside clinic hours, whether any medicines should be paused, and where you should be assessed. Ask how to care for a central line or wound while fever is being checked.