A 10-year retrospective comparative analysis of the clinical features of brucellosis in children and adults.

INTRODUCTION: Brucellosis is a zoonosis with a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations. However, it is still unclear whether the clinical manifestations in children are significantly different from those in adults.

METHODOLOGY: Patients with brucellosis and treated at the General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University between 2009 and 2019 were divided into two groups; children (88) and adults (354). Thereafter, the records of the two groups were analyzed retrospectively.

RESULTS: The findings showed that: 1. School-age children, young and middle-aged individuals were more likely to suffer from brucellosis and most were male; 2. Fever and arthralgia were the most common manifestations in the two groups. In addition, fatigue and low back pain were rare in children although fever and lymphadenopathy were more common in this group. However, hepatomegaly and splenomegaly were common in both groups; 3. The most common complication was osteoarthritis and peripheral arthritis occurred more frequently in children. On the other hand, spondylitis was the most common in adults (this particularly involved the lumbar and sacral vertebrae); 4. An increase in the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, levels of the C-reactive protein and liver enzymes was common in both two groups; 5. There was no significant difference in the positive rate of the standard agglutination test between children (96.59%) and adults (95.20%). However, the positive rate of blood culture was higher in children (65.85%) than in adults (51.00%).

CONCLUSIONS: Brucellosis causes damage to multiple systems and differences in clinical characteristics were found between children and adults.