Brucella Canis Coinfections in Patients With Brucellosis

Abstract

Objective: Laboratory diagnosis of Brucella canis infections cannot be made by classical serological methods as readily as infections of other species of Brucella pathogenic for humans. Therefore, the information about B. canis infections in Turkey is limited. In this study, we aimed to detect presence of B. canis coinfections in humans who were diagnosed as brucellosis. Methods: Study has been designed as retrospective cross-sectional. A total of 566 serum samples collected from patients who had confirmed brucellosis and were living in cities of the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey were tested with rapid slide agglutination test (RSAT), 2-mercaptoethanol RSAT (2ME-RSAT) and microplate agglutination test (MAT) using B. canis M-, a less mucoid variant, as the antigen. Results: Out of the samples tested, 142 (25%) and 49 (8.7%) were positive by RSAT and 2ME-RSAT, respectively, and this difference was significant (p= 0.05). In total, 55/ 566 (9.7%) samples were MAT-positive. Differences between 2ME-RSAT and MAT were not statistically significant (p>0.05). Conclusions: Our B. canis coinfection prevalence data demonstrates that serological testing for B. canis should be performed in Turkey. It was also concluded that there are some advantages for using MAT, and this technique may be preferable over 2ME-RSAT.