Brucella infection in children: evaluation of 148 pediatric patients

Authors

Abstract

AimBrucellosis a worldwide infectious zoonotic disease. This study was aimed to evaluate the clinical, demographic characteristics, complications, treatment and follow-up results of pediatric patients diagnosed with brucellosis.
MethodThe medical records of 148 pediatric patients who were diagnosed with brucellosis were studied retrospectively.
ResultsSixty-one female (41.2%), 87 male (58.8%), in total 148 pediatric patients who were diagnosed with brucellosis were included in the study. Among the patients, 64.1% had a history of consuming fresh cheese, 4.1% had a history of consuming raw milk and 16.9% had a history of keeping a Brucella diagnosed animal at home. Brucella history rate in the family members of the patients was determined as 39.2%; and 12.8% of the patients included in the study were asymptomatic. The most common complaint of the patients who were symptomatic was fever (59.5%) followed by arthralgias (41.2%) and leg pain (38.5%). All patients were subjected to standard tube agglutination test and blood culture was taken from 93 patients. B. melitensis in blood culture was positive in 72% of the patients. Osteoarticular involvement developed in 12.1% of the patients; and 1.3% of the patients developed relapses after the end of the treatment.
ConclusionBrucellosis is still an endemic disease in Turkey. Brucella can infect all organs and tissues and is a major cause of morbidity. The use of more than one antibiotic in the treatment and long treatment duration reduces patient compliance; thus, close follow-up of the patients is important.

Keywords

Declarations

Additional Information

Publisher’s Note
Bayrakol MP remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional and institutional claims.

Rights and Permissions

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). To view a copy of the license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

View full license details →

About This Article

Received:

June 28, 2018

Accepted:

July 28, 2018

Published Online:

July 29, 2018

Printed:

January 1, 2019