A Comparison of the Performance of Exfoliative Cytopathology, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Culture and ELISA in the Detection of Brucella canis

Abstract

This study was aimed to determine the performance of cytopathology for the diagnosis of B. canis on the basis of a comparison with culture, PCR and ELISA results. For this purpose, swabs for cytological, molecular and bacteriological examinations blood serum samples for serological tests were taken from 147 dogs which are suspected to have genital infection.. While the cytological samples were stained with May-Grünwald Giemsa solution, the swab samples were tested by bacteriologically and PCR and the serum samples were assayed by ELISA. According to the results, while ELISA yielded a seropositivity rate of 11.5%, PCR demonstrated a positivity rate of 1.8%. No B. canis could be isolated from the samples were taken for bacteriological examinations. At cytological examination, it was observed that the samples contained coccobacilli presented with abundant neutrophil leukocytes and macrophages. Some of these immune cells and epithelial cells were observed to contain round/oval shaped bacteria in their cytoplasm. The results of this study suggest that cytopathology can be used for auxiliary test for the diagnosis of brucellosis.