Clinical and laboratory characteristics of childhood brucellosis in high-risk area of Western China

Jpn J Infect Dis. 2021 Aug 31. doi: 10.7883/yoken.JJID.2021.388. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTChildhood brucellosis present various non-specific clinical symptoms, and limited laboratory data exist for clinical diagnosis. A better understanding of these clinical and laboratory characteristics can avoid clinical misdiagnosis and mistreatment. In this case-series study, a total of 78 children with confirmed diagnosis of brucellosis were evaluated retrospectively. We observed that the incidence rate was higher in the first two quarters every year. The most common symptom was fever. Osteoarticular involvement was found in 44.87% of the patients. Laboratory tests showed that the values of erythrocyte sedimentation rate(ESR), C-reactive protein(CRP), Hemoglobin(Hb), Neutrophils(NEU), Alanine aminotransfease(ALT) and Ferritin in childhood brucellosis with osteoarticular involvement had significant differences than those without osteoarticular involvement or control group (P<0.05). Childhood brucellosis without osteoarticular involvement often accompanied by decrease of NEU , increase of CRP and ALT compared with that control group (P<0.05). The Receiver Operating Curves (ROC) analysis revealed that NEU, CRP and ALT can be used as adjunct parameters in the differential diagnosis of childhood brucellosis. These data suggest that clinical and laboratory characteristics are very important for every clinician, which may have a complementary role in diagnosis of childhood brucellos...
Source: Japanese Journal of Infectious Diseases - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Source Type: research