Background: Brucellosis is the most frequently encountered zoonosis and one of the most important health challenges, especially in developing countries. This disease can be accompanied by bacteremia and may result in severe complications. A definitive diagnosis may be made by culture of the organism from blood, body fluids or tissues, although serum agglutination test is often recognized as the reference test. While bacteremic brucellosis is not uncommon, research on this topic remains limited. The present study was conducted to determine the epidemiological, clinical, and para-clinical characteristics of patients hospitalized with bacteremic brucellosis.
Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study evaluated the epidemiological, clinical, and para-clinical characteristics, and clinical outcomes of patients hospitalized with bacteremic brucellosis from March 2011 to February 2021 at Imam Reza and Ghaem hospitals in Mashhad, Iran. A list of adult patients with confirmed brucellosis was assembled from microbiology laboratory records. The inclusion criterion was a positive blood culture for Brucella, regardless of the Brucella serology results. According to the laboratory report, the BACTEC culture medium was used to identify the organism, and the reported results did not specify the Brucella species. Demographic data, clinical presentations, paraclinical findings (including Wright, 2ME Wright, and Coombs Wright), and clinical outcomes were extracted from archived medical records.