Importance of Culture for Diagnosing Human Brucellosis

ABSTRACT

Human brucellosis is a newly emerging infectious disease in Korea, and the number of the patients with this disease has rapidly increased in recent years. To evaluate the most reliable method in diagnosing human brucellosis, a retrospective study was conducted. Medical records of patients admitted or followed-up at the outpatient department of a tertiary care university hospital during the past 5 years were reviewed. Among a total of 32 human brucellosis patients (24 males and 8 females), 21 (65.6%) were positive for standard tube agglutination test (STA) but negative for blood or bone marrow culture, 7 (21.9%) were positive for both STA and culture, and 4 (12.5%) were STA negative but culture positive. Based on these findings, we recommend that physicians include blood and/or bone marrow culture to obtain definitive diagnosis when clinical symptoms and signs strongly suggest the human brucellosis, even when STA is negative.