Comparing Clinical and Serological Responses in Patients Diagnosed with Brucellosis Download PDF

Introduction: Brucellosis is a bacterial disease common between the humans and animals and it is highly prevalent all around the globe and Lorestan Province has been recognized as one of the endemic regions for the foresaid disease. The disease reportedly has a high prevalence rate in Iran. The clinical symptoms of the disease are very diverse in such a manner that 26 cases are left undiagnosed per every well-justified brucellosis case. Thus, according to the importance of this native disease and its clinical diversity as well as for the problems residing in its diagnosis and treatment, the current research paper aims at comparing the improvement of symptoms and serological titers of the disease as well as figuring out any relationship between them. Method: the study is a retrospective cross-sectional research that has been carried out based on census method on all the patients with brucellosis who have referred to infectious diseases clinic in Shohaday-e-Ashayer Hospital in 2012. The patients who were found having the required perfect information corresponding to a checklist were allowed to enter the study and their clinical symptoms were compared in serological tests in different time intervals, namely the onset of the treatment, two months and four months after the onset of the treatment. Findings: Out of the 70 patients studied herein 31 (44.3%) were female and 39 (55.7%) were male. At the beginning of the treatment, 88.6% of the patients had backache as well as musculoskeletal pains; 80% had fatigue and debility; 58.6% had headache and 50% had fever. Two months after the initiation of treatment, the clinical symptoms of the patients in an order of frequency were fatigue and debility, backache and musculoskeletal pains, headache and fever with the frequency rates of 51.4%, 34.3% and 12.9%, respectively. Four months after the onset of the treatments, the clinical symptoms by an order of frequency were fatigue and debility, headache, backache and musculoskeletal pains as well as fever with the frequency rates of 42.9%, 18.6%, 15.7% and 7.1%, respectively. Conclusion: there was found a significant relationship between the serology tethers and patients’ symptoms from two months since the onset of the treatment. Also, there was found a significant relationship between the clinical symptoms and Wright’s test in five of the cases, Wright’s Coombs test in three cases and 2ME test in six cases and the relationship was also found nearly significant in two of the cases (P-value=0.006). According to the abovementioned results, the relationship was found statistically more significant between 2ME test and the clinical symptoms two months and four months after the onset of the treatment in contrast to Wright’s test and Wright’s Coombs test and this is indicative of the higher value of 2ME test in follow-up periods and figuring out the responses to the disease treatment.