importance of nonspecific laboratory tests in brucella diagnosis

Objectives: Brucella infection doesn’t have spesific clinicalevidences, for this reason it can be confused with febrilediseases. In this study we aimed investigating theimportance of diagnosis with nonspesific laboratory testsin brucellosis.Materials and methods: We retrospectively screenedclinically compatible with brucellosis, standard tube agglutination(STA) and STA tests with coombs of patientssera which came to Uşak State Hospital Central Laboratorybetween December 2010-May 2011. As controlgroup, we determined random 62 patients attended to thelaboratory between December 2010-May 2011 with STAtest results are negative and not diagnosed brucellosis.Results: C-reactive protein elevated in 54 patients(87.0%), ESR elevated in 44 patients (70.9%), AST elevatedin 22 patients (35.4%), ALT elevated in 7 patients(11.2%), ferritin elevated in 19 patients (30.6%), 8 patientshad anemia (12.9%) of patient group. In control group,7 patients elevated CRP (11.2%), 10 patients elevatedESR (16.1%), 1 patient elevated AST (1.6%), 1 patientelevated ALT (1.6%), 6 patients had anemia (9.6%) anddecrease in ferritin level wasn’t detected.Conclusion: We concluded statistically significant highlevel of CRP, ESR, ALT, AST and ferritin support the testresults too beside the spesific brucellosis tests. J Clin ExpInvest 2012; 3(1): 87-90