Analysis of Clinical Manifestations of Acute and Chronic Brucellosis in Patients Admitted to a Public General Hospital in Northern China

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the clinical features of patients with acute and chronic brucellosis in order to further improve the understanding of the disease. METHODS: The clinical data of 144 patients with brucellosis who were admitted to our hospital were selected for retrospective analysis and were divided into two groups: the acute phase group (n = 86) and the chronic phase group (n = 58), and the clinical characteristics of the acute and chronic phases of the disease were analyzed. The χ(2) test was used for countable data comparisons between the two groups. RESULTS: Brucella melitensis was found as the contact organism in 61 patients (70.93%) in the acute phase group and in 12 patients (20.69%) in the chronic phase group (p < 0.01). Brucella abortus was found as the contact organism in 14 patients (16.28%) in the acute phase group and in 38 patients (65.52%) in the chronic phase group (p < 0.01). The results showed that the respective prevalence of fever, excessive sweating, splenomegaly, and lymph node enlargement were higher in the acute phase group than in the chronic phase group (p < 0.01). The respective prevalence of testicular swelling and pain were higher in the acute phase group than in the chronic phase group (p < 0.05), while the prevalence of joint and muscle pain was higher in the chronic phase group than in the acute phase group (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: In Harbin, two types of clinical brucellosis, acute and chronic phase, infected sheep and cattle, respectively, are endemic at the same time, which complicates diagnosis. Besides, the clinical manifestations of brucellosis are complex and diverse, and they are often misdiagnosed and mistreated, leading to serious health injuries. Therefore, it is important to improve the understanding of disease characteristics in patients with acute and chronic brucellosis.