Clinical and biological aspects of chronic brucellosis

: The present study refers to 53 cases of chronic brucellosis admitted to the clinic or followed up in an out-patient unit for ten years (1962-1971). There was a total of 946 days in hospital and 1688 days of occupational disability, about 40% of the patients necessitating repeated hospitalization because of the relapsing course of the disease. This group of cases presented the classical dominant features of an occupational anthropozoonoses (90.5%). Elements of visceral and tissular pathology, obviously conditioned in their structure by the stage of the disease, were found in cardiovascular, hepatic, nervous, osteoarticular, orchitic, ocular, cutaneous localizations, etc. Their associated character particularize the polyvisceral forms. The immunopathology of chronic brucellosis is marked by its dynamics and frequently dissociated character of the sero-allergic diagnostic reactions. Blood proteins behave unequally (hypoalbuminemia, hyperalpha1-, hyperalpha2- and hypergammaglobulinemia). There is still debate about the terapeutic attempts, although sigmamycin associated with cortisone derivatives reduce or temporize the relapsing evolution, opening up new therapeutical perspectives.