Post treatment serologic fallow up of brucellosis

Abstract

Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease with a global distribution it is an important cause of human and domestic disease. The aim of this study was serological follow-up of patients with brucellosis after treatment. Materials and Methods: This study was performed on the population of outpatients with brucellosis whose treatment was completed. The criterias for inclusion in the study were: completion of the treatment course, clinical improvement and asymptomatic state at follow visits. The patients were be serologically tested for standard agglutination test (SAT) and 2-mercaptoethanol (2ME) with serological titers of 3 and 9 and if possible 18 months in post-treatment period, and titers of SAT <1: 160 and 2-ME <1: 80 were considered as serological remedies. Results: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 500 patients whom were referred to the infectious disease clinics of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences with the diagnosis of brucellosis included, and underwent follow-up, visits of whom 238 patients were applied for follow-up visits, 48.7% of patients were female and the mean age of patients was 38.60±16.23 years. The most common complaints of the patients were skeletal pain followed by fever and sweating. Most of the studied patients were in the group of acute uncomplicated brucellosis in terms of symptoms and clinical findings (63.4%). The mean titer of Coombs Wright in the studied patients was 527.89±556.55 and the mean Wright titer was 331.88±335.44. The mean duration of treatment in the study was 5.78±1.21 weeks in acute uncomplicated cases, 5.33±2.21 months in acute complicated cases and 8.09±2.23 months in chronic cases 96.2% of the patients had complete recovery in terms of clinical signs and symptoms after treatment. Recurrence was observed in 1.3% of patients. Evaluation of Combs Wright serology titer results showed that 17 patients (7.1%) had positive Coombs Wright serology after successful treatment (X2=61.13, p<0.001); Also, 12 patients (5%) had positive wright serology after successful treatment (X2=76.38, p<0.001). In contrast, none of the patients had positive 2ME serology after successful treatment (X2=14.09, p=0.318).