Abstract

Objective: Brucellosis is an endemic zoonotic disease in our country and may lead to complications affecting many systems. Infection is frequently transmitted to humans via discharges of infected animals or unpasteurized milk and dairy products. The disease is characterized by fever, malaise, sweating, anorexia and arthralgia, which are non-specific symptoms. The objective of this study was to evaluate the epidemiological, clinical and laboratory findings, and complications and treatments of the patients with brucellosis.

Methods: In this study, 78 patients with brucellosis, followed in Departments of Infectious Diseases and Neurology between April 2007 and August 2008 were evaluated retrospectively. Diagnostic criteria were standard tube agglutination test at a titer  of ≥1/160 with symptoms suggestive of brucellosis.

Results: 46 (59%) of the patients were female and 32 (41%) were male. Mean age was 36.4±14.2 (range 17-73) years. Rates of acute, subacute and chronic infection were 79, 16, and 5% respectively. The most common mode of transmission was consumption of unpasteurized milk products (74%). The main symptoms were fever, malaise, arthralgia, myalgia and sweating. The frequent signs were fever (82%), hepatomegaly (28%) and splenomegaly (23%). Increased C-reactive protein in 69 (88%) patients, increased serum transaminase levels in 32 (41%) patients, anemia in 34 (43%) patients and leukocytosis in 4 (5.2%) patients were detected. The most frequent regimen was doxycyline and rifampicin among three different regimens.  Treatment failure and relapse rate was 5.2% and 2.6%, respectively.

Conclusions: The fact that the symptoms and findings of brucellosis show variability makes clinical diagnosis difficult and can delay treatment. For this reason, in the presence of fever and osteoarticular symptoms, especially in patients living in endemic regions, brucellosis should be considered in differential diagnosis.