Journal Article

Epidemiological characteristics, clinical manifestations and laboratory findings in 850 patients with brucellosis in Heilongjiang Province, China

Li, Qian, Li, Yongguo, Jiang, Lisheng, Jiang, Wenhui, Huang, Yanxin, Lan, Yinghua, Chen, Jiwang

2019

Overview

Background Brucellosis has extensive clinical spectrum, clinicians have insufficient understanding of the disease, and the misdiagnosis rate is still high. By collecting and analyzing the clinical characteristics of patients with brucellosis in Heilongjiang Province to provide guidance and reference for clinicians to make timely diagnosis and treatment. Methods The demographic and epidemiological characteristics, clinical features, complications, laboratory findings were retrospectively evaluated in 850 brucellosis patients admitted in the Department of Infectious Diseases of the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University and the Second Hospital of Daqing from 2012 to 2017. Results Of the 850 patients, the most common clinical manifestations were fever (93.3%), joint pain (69.8%), sweating (45.2%), fatigue (38.6%), and splenomegaly (34.0%). Peripheral arthritis, spondylitis and epididymal-orchitis were the common complications. Of the 398 patients who were followed up and completed treatment, 22 (5.5%) had relapse. Conclusions Brucellosis is a multisystem disease with diverse clinical manifestations. In areas where brucellosis is endemic, the possibility of the disease should be considered in patients with unexplained fever and joints pain. In addition, the high rate of relapse is mainly due to the misdiagnosis of complications, so local CT or MRI examination is necessary for patients with joint pain and low back pain. Timely diagnosis, early detection of complications are essential to improve the prognosis and reduce relapse.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Adolescent / Adult / Aged / Arthralgia / Arthralgia - complications / Arthritis / Back pain / Bacterial and fungal diseases / Blood / Bone marrow / Brucellosis / Brucellosis - complications / Brucellosis - diagnosis / Brucellosis - epidemiology / Cattle / Child / Child, Preschool / China - epidemiology / Clinical characteristics / Communicable diseases / Complications / Demographic aspects / Demographics / Diagnosis / Diagnostic errors / Diagnostic imaging / Epidemiology / Family medical history / Fatigue - complications / Female / Fever / Fever - complications / Fluids / Hospitalization / Humans / Infant / Infant, Newborn / Infections / Infectious Diseases / Internal Medicine / Joint diseases / Joints (anatomy) / Laboratories / Laboratory findings / Low back pain / Magnetic resonance imaging / Male / Medical imaging / Medical Microbiology / Medical research / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Meningitis / Middle Aged / Musculoskeletal system / NMR / Nuclear magnetic resonance / Orchitis / Pain / Parasitology / Patients / Prognosis / Public health / Recurrence / Relapse / Research Article / Retrospective Studies / Sheep / Splenomegaly / Splenomegaly - complications / Spondylitis / Sweating / Systematic review / Tropical Medicine / Ultrasonic imaging / Young Adult