Clinical findings of vertebral osteomyelitis: Brucella spp. versus other etiologic agents

We aimed to evaluate patients with vertebral osteomyelitis (VO) in our region and to compare the clinical and laboratory parameters of brucellar and non-brucellar VO patients (NBVO). This retrospective study included 80 patients with VO followed in our hospital between August 2004 and September 2010. The distribution of gender was 43 females (53.8%) and 37 males (46.2%) with average age of 52.5. Patients with brucellar vertebral VO (BVO; n = 30) accounted for 37.5% of all patients, and the rest (n = 50) were with NBVO. Co-morbidities existed in 32.5% of patients. In statistical comparison of VO patients who had the Brucella spp. as the infectious agent with patients of VO by non-brucellar pathogens, the following factors were found out to be significantly associated with BVO; low Charlson score (P = 0.0001), lower co-incidence with chronic renal failure (P = 0.001), high frequency of constitutional symptoms (P = 0.006), fever (P = 0.005), low-level inflammatory markers (WBC; Neutrophil; ESR; CRP, P values 0.006; 0.001; 0.022; 0.002, respectively), low-rate surgical treatment (P = 0.02) and culture positivity (P = 0.0001) and higher hemoglobin, total protein, albumin values (P = 0.002; 0.032; 0.016, respectively). VO may be strongly associated with brucellosis in patients presenting with fever and symptoms, low Charlson score and indistinct inflammatory markers.