The skeletal manifestations of brucellosis

Abstract

A prospective study of 33 patients with skeletal complications of brucellosis is reported. The diagnosis depends on the brucellar agglutination titre because the clinical, radiological and histological features are not specific, and blood culture and culture of synovial fluid are often negative. The commonest site is the sacroiliac joint, and brucellosis must be differentiated from tuberculosis as an important cause of backache. Treatment is with chemotherapy, the preferred combination being rifampicin and co-trimoxazole. Relapse can occur, but the chances can be reduced by careful clinical monitoring, and by repeated serological tests and gallium scanning; it is treated by further chemotherapy. Operation is indicated to relieve spinal cord compression or to drain a large paravertebral abscess.

Rheumatologic manifestations of brucellosis

“…Sacroiliitis was found in 31% of patients in this study which is in consistent with two previous studies [14,15], whereas, in a number of studies, sacroiliitis was more common and accounted the most frequent skeletal manifestations of brucellosis [2,6,9,11,16]. It was more frequently detected in studies that used scintigraphic scanning [2,6,11,12,17,18] rather than studies which diagnosed sacroiliitis by clinical and radiological examination [7,9].…”

Paravertebral abscess formation and knee arthritis due to Brucellosis in a patient with rheumatoid arthritis

“…3,6,7 Spondylitis is one of the most frequently a ected sites in adults, accounting for between 20% to 60% of osteoarticular complications, the lumbar segment being the most commonly a ected level, varying in frequency from 44% to 76% according to di erent studies. 6,8 ± 10 Although brucella spondylitis is considered a mild form of infectious spondylitis in some reports, 11,12 in others, and in our case report, it caused highly destructive lesions.…”

Brucellar spondylitis: a rare cause of spinal cord compression

“…While arthritis, bursitis, tenosynovitis, and sacroiliitis are more frequently observed in younger patients, the frequency of spondylodiscitis increases with aging, and its diagnosis may be difficult. [1][2][3][4] In this paper, we report a patient first misdiagnosed in another clinic as having a tumor or tuberculosis. The patient presented with paraplegia due to a compression fracture and a paravertebral soft tissue mass in the thoracic spine, which was later found out in our clinic to be due to brucellar spondylitis.…”