Brucellar pericarditis: a report of four cases and review of the literature

Abstract

Background: Brucellosis, a disease endemic in many countries including Turkey, is a systemic infectious disease. Cardiovascular complications are not frequent, and endocarditis is the main cardiac manifestation of brucellosis. Pericarditis in the absence of concomitant endocarditis is extremely rare.

Methods: In this report, we present four patients with pericarditis caused by brucellosis in the absence of concomitant endocarditis, along with a review of the published literature on brucellar pericarditis. We also searched for clinically silent pericardial effusion among patients with brucellosis. We performed routine transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) on 72 consecutive patients with newly diagnosed brucellosis in the absence of any signs and symptoms of pericarditis over a period of 6 months.

Results: Three of our patients with brucellar pericarditis recovered fully after antibiotics. The other patient received 6 days of antibiotic treatment, and her signs and symptoms regressed, but after this the patient was lost to follow-up. We did not detect pericarditis among the 72 newly diagnosed patients.

Conclusions: Brucellar pericarditis is a rare clinical entity, and the morbidity and mortality in patients with brucellar pericarditis is low. Pericardiocentesis should only be performed in patients with cardiac tamponade. Moreover, the choice of antibiotics and the duration of treatment do not differ between brucellosis cases with or without isolated pericarditis. Although the prevalence of pericarditis in brucellosis is low, brucellar pericarditis should always be kept in mind in patients with acute or chronic pericarditis, especially in areas where brucellosis is endemic.