Age and duration of disease as factors affecting clinical findings and sacroiliitis in brucellosis.

OBJECTIVE

Brucellosis may be seen in any age group, but it still involves young and middle aged adults more frequently. Our aim was to investigate the relationship between age and the duration of disease on clinical findings of brucellosis in adults in this study.

PATIENTS AND METHOD: One hundred and sixty-three patients with brucellosis, treated in our hospital, between 1997 and 2003, were evaluated retrospectively.

RESULTS

Fever was found in 60.7% of the patients, and it was significantly higher when the duration of disease was less than one month (p = 0.03). Fever was significantly lower in the > or = 65 age group (p = 0.01). Sacroiliitis was detected in 44.1% of patients. Sacroiliitis was significantly higher in the 15-35 age group (p = 0.03). There were no differences between age groups and other clinical and laboratory findings.

CONCLUSIONS

Sacroiliac involvement was noted particularly in young adults who manifested lumbar pain and fever, but this might not be a major symptom of brucellosis in the elderly, or in patients showing symptoms for more than a month.