Abstract

Objective: Brucellosis is a zoonotic infection that is common worldwide. It is a multisystemic disease in which specific organ involvement can be observed. However, no specific diagnostic tests can be used for early identification or prediction of focal organ involvement. This study aims to determine the risk factors that determine focal organ involvement in brucellosis.

Methods: 143 patients who were followed with brucellosis between January and June 2022 were included in the study. The patients were divided into two groups, those with focal organ involvement and those without, and their clinical and laboratory findings were compared. The significance level was accepted as 0.05.

Results: The average age of the patients was 45.64±17.3 years, and 51% (n=73) were women. The most common clinical findings were fatigue (97.2%, n=139), sweating (86.7%, n=124), and myalgia (68.5%, n=98). The most common form of  brucellosis  was subacute brucellosis (52.4%, n=75). The focal organ involvement rate was 32.2% (n=46). The most common focal organ involvements were osteoarticular (27.9%, n=40), haematological (6.3%, n=9) and genitourinary (3.5%, n=5). There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of age (p=0.698) and gender (p=0.374). While sweating was less in patients with focal brucellosis (p=0.010), back pain (p=0.046), hip pain (p <0.001), high ALT (p=0.014), high CRP (p=0.003) and high ESR (p <0.001) was more encountered.

Conclusion: High CRP, ESR and ALT levels, anemia, back and hip pain may be parameters that predict focal organ involvement in patients diagnosed with brucellosis.