Tehran University Medical Journal

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Brucellosis is a multisystem disease with diverse clinical presentations and involvement of the nervous system is considered to 5 to be 10% in adult patients and 1% in children. The presentations of neurobrucellosis includes meningoencephalitis, subarachnoid haemorrhage, myelitis, radiculoneuritis, intracerebral and epidural abscess, psychosis and vascular syndrome. Twenty-two patients with neurobrucellosis are described. Ten patients had meningoencephalitis, seven patients had meningitis, three patients had polyradiculopathy and one patient presented with spinal epidural abscess and one patient had brain abscess. Results of an agglutination test for Brucella in serum were positive for all patients (>1:160) eight of 15 patients had positive agglutination test in CSF. Five patients had positive blood cultures, 3 patients had positive bone marrow cultures and 2 of 15 patients had positive CSF cultures. All of cultures were Brucella Mellitensis. Antimicrobial treatment included concurrent administration of Doxycycline, Rifampin and Trimethoprim-Sulfametoxazole. Four patients received Dexamethason concurrently. In conclusion, nervous system involvement is a serious manifestation of brucellosis. As brucellosis is an endemic disease in Iran we suggest that brucellosis be investigated with neurological symptoms and signs.

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Although cellular immunity involving activated macrophage is important in resistance to Brucella infections, serum factors and polymorphonuclears (PMNs) play some role in the initial responses to Brucella infections. In this research, we studied respiratory burst of PMNs against opsonized yeast and opsonized inactivated Brucella melitensis in chronic Brucellosis patients and controls with no previous history of Brucellosis. A group of 41 patients and another group of 20 blood donors as control, were included. The other 2 groups included 10 cases and 6 controls. Mean responses of PMNs of patients and controls to opsonized yeast were 110.3 and 129.3 milivolt respectively and the difference was not statistically significant. No statistically significant difference was observed between respiratory burst of PMNs exposed to inactivated Brucella in 10 patients with chronic Brucellosis (Mean 67.2) and 6 control blood donors (Mean 112.5), so we concluded that inactivated Brucella melitensis can't inhibit activity of myeloproxidase enzyme.

 

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Background: Brucellosis is the most frequently encountered zoonosis and one of the most important health challenges, especially in developing countries. This disease can be accompanied by bacteremia and may result in severe complications. A definitive diagnosis may be made by culture of the organism from blood, body fluids or tissues, although serum agglutination test is often recognized as the reference test. While bacteremic brucellosis is not uncommon, research on this topic remains limited. The present study was conducted to determine the epidemiological, clinical, and para-clinical characteristics of patients hospitalized with bacteremic brucellosis.
Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study evaluated the epidemiological, clinical, and para-clinical characteristics, and clinical outcomes of patients hospitalized with bacteremic brucellosis from March 2011 to February 2021 at Imam Reza and Ghaem hospitals in Mashhad, Iran. A list of adult patients with confirmed brucellosis was assembled from microbiology laboratory records. The inclusion criterion was a positive blood culture for Brucella, regardless of the Brucella serology results. According to the laboratory report, the BACTEC culture medium was used to identify the organism, and the reported results did not specify the Brucella species. Demographic data, clinical presentations, paraclinical findings (including Wright, 2ME Wright, and Coombs Wright), and clinical outcomes were extracted from archived medical records.