Epidemiological, clinical, diagnostic and treatment aspects of hospitalized Brucellosis patients in Hamadan

Background and Objective: Brucellosis is recognized as a clinical and health problem in underdeveloped countries. This research is a descriptive study to determine the prevalence of brucellosis, clinical aspects and laboratory results as well as epidemiological analysis of hospitalized patients in Hamadan city in a five-year period. Materials and Methods: During our study period, 809 patients (61.2% men and 38.8% women) with confirmed brucellosis based on clinical symptoms and serological tests, from all Hamadan hospitals were looked into. Patients' data concerning age, gender, occupation, date of diagnosis and observed symptoms were collected from five regional hospitals. Blood samples were obtained by venepuncture needles and all samples were analyzed using serum agglutination test (SAT), Coombs and 2-mercaptoethanol (2ME) methods. Blood culture was performed by inoculation into biphasic blood culture media for isolation the brucella organisms. Results: The highest and lowest age groups were 11-20 (23.5%) and over 80 (1.11%) years. The highest brucellosis rate was observed in housekeepers (26.46%) followed by farmers (20.51%). The most common observed symptoms were arthralgia, chill and anorexia with 83.8, 63.10 and 59.45% respectively, while the lowest was urethritis (0.24%). The most common signs were fever and splenomegaly with 83.8 and 20.76% respectively. A combination of rifampin and doxcycline was the most applied treatment protocol (40.91%). Conclusion: Brucellosis program needs to be more concerned since most affected patients were young adults with predominance among males. The majority of brucellosis cases in this study were attributed to direct contact with animals or their products. In our study cotrimoxasol-rifampin reported to have the lowest relapse rate.