The Turkish Journal of Pediatrics 2020 , Vol 62 , Num 2
Osteoarticular involvement of brucellosis in pediatric patients: clinical and laboratory characteristics
Dilek Yılmaz Çiftdoğan 1-2 ,Selda Aslan 3
1 Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, İzmir Katip Çelebi University, İzmir
2 Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Tepecik Training and Research Hospital, İzmir
3 Department of Infectious Diseases, Gaziantep Children State Hospital, Gaziantep, Turkey
DOI : 10.24953/turkjped.2020.02.005 Background and objectives. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical and laboratory characteristics of osteoarticular involvement in children with brucellosis.

Methods. A total of 202 pediatric brucellosis patients were evaluated from April 2012 to August 2013.

Results. Among the 202 patients, 53 (26.2%) had osteoarticular involvement. In patients with osteoarticular involvement, the mean values of estimated sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (C-RP) were significantly higher than in patients without osteoarticular involvement (p = 0.001, p = 0.01, respectively). The majority of patients with osteoarticular involvement (n = 48, 90.6%) had a higher standard tube agglutination (STA) test titer (≥ 1/640) than patients without osteoarticular involvement (n = 69, 46.3%) (p = 0.001). The most commonly found osteoarticular involvement was peripheral arthritis. The second most commonly found osteoarticular involvement was sacroiliitis (n = 5, 9.4%). Three patients (5.7%) had spondylitis. Only one patient (1.9%) had osteomyelitis.

Conclusions. Osteoarticular involvement was detected in nearly one of every four childhood brucellosis patients in our study. Brucellosis should be considered as a pre-diagnosis in children with osteoarticular complaints, especially in regions where the disease is endemic. Keywords : Brucellosis, osteoarticular, pediatric

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