[Evaluation of brucellosis patients in Trakya University Hospital]. / Trakya universitesi hastanesinde izlenen bruselloz olgularinin degerlendirilmesi.

Human brucellosis is an endemo-epidemic disease in the Trakya Region of Turkey. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the clinical, laboratory findings, therapeutic features, and prognosis of the 47 patients (49% were female, age range: 17-76 years, mean age: 45 years) with human brucellosis followed up in Trakya University Hospital between 2001-2005. The patients were categorized as acute (64%), subacute (28%) and chronic (9%) brucellosis. Complications were detected in 51% of the patients and spondylodiscitis was the most common (30%) complication. Twenty-seven percent of patients with spondylodiscitis were classified as acute, 46% were subacute, and 27% were chronic brucellosis. Other complications were sacroileitis (9%), arthritis (4%), meningitis (4%), endocarditis (2%), and orchitis (2%). Positive blood cultures were detected in 80% and 54% of acute and subacute cases, respectively, however, blood cultures were all negative in the chronic cases. Overall positive blood cultures were observed in 68% of cases. Fifty-one percent of the patients were treated with doxycycline+streptomycin, and 40% with doxycycline+rifampicin. Two patients with meningitis were treated with doxycycline+rifampicin+ceftriaxone, and one patient with endocarditis was treated with doxycycline+rifampicin+cotrimoxazole combinations. Relapse was observed in two (4%) of the patients. Since serious complications were observed in half of the brucellosis patients, combination therapies were prolonged. Complete evaluation of patients with human brucellosis requires investigation of osteoartricular complications and modification of the duration of therapy according to the existing complication.

First isolation of Rickettsia conorii from humans in the Trakya (European) region of Turkey.

In the Trakya region of Turkey, located in the European part of the country, presumptive cases of Mediterranean spotted fever have been diagnosed and treated every summer since the beginning of the 1990s. The aim of this prospective study was to isolate and identify the rickettsial strains from blood samples of 11 patients and from skin biopsies of 10 of these 11 patients with the diagnosis of spotted fever in the Trakya region of Turkey in 2003. Immunofluorescence assay was performed with acute-phase and convalescent-phase serum samples of 11 patients. All patients had significant antibody titers against spotted fever group rickettsiae. Rickettsia conorii was isolated from the skin biopsies of three of ten patients and was also demonstrated by polymerase chain reaction in skin biopsies of nine of ten patients. In southeastern Europe, the Balkan Peninsula (including the Trakya region of Turkey) is an area where arthropods are endemic and where new arthropod-borne infections can be detected.

A methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus outbreak in a new University hospital due to a strain transferred with an infected patient from another city six months previously.

Kocaeli University Medical School was established in 1995. The first methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolate was detected two years later in a patient transferred from a different city. Six months after this, we detected a small MRSA outbreak in the intensive care unit involving four patients, two of whom had bacteremia, and a staff nasal carrier. All isolates, including the first, appeared to be a single outbreak strain, demonstrated by pulsed field gel electrophoresis profiles which different by at most two bands, identical randomly amplified polymorphic DNA profiles, and identical coagulase gene types by PCR. Antibiogram were identical except that one isolate was additionally resistant to cotrimoxazole. These results show that MRSA isolates can spread between hospitals with infected or colonized patients and can apparently persist in the hospital for six months without causing infection. Screening of asymptomatic patients on wards affected by MRSA or transferred from other hospitals may be helpful in controlling these infections.