Psychogenic fever due to worry about COVID-19: A case report.

Psychogenic fever is stress-related hyperthermia that is recognized as a psychosomatic condition. We treated a 46-year-old Japanese man who was worrying about the coronavirus infection (COVID-19) and had a fever with a maximum temperature of 38.1℃. The patient was tested twice for SRAS-CoV-2 using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), but both tests were negative. All tests were negative for organic diseases, including infections, allergy/collagen diseases, endocrine disorders, malignancies, and drugs-induced conditions. The more he doubted the COVID-19 in him, the more he complained of the already known various symptoms, such as smelling disorder. The patient believed firmly that he had COVID-19 because PCR can be false negative. Finally, the patient was treated with the anxiolytic, loflazepate, at 4 mg/day. This treatment was highly effective. The patient's serum IL-6 was 1.1 pg/ml (≤4.0). The patient was diagnosed with psychogenic fever due to irrational worry over coronavirus. Such typical cases should be treated with an anxiolytic.