Bru-cellosis-epidemiological and clinical aspects. was positive in all patients 91/91 (100, 0%). Brucella IgM antibodies with ELISA were positive in 59/91 (64, 8%). Brucella IgG antibodies with ELISA were positive in 51/91 (56%). In order to determine the diagnostic value of the different assessments, we compared the sensitivity among test-methods: Rose Bengal test-100.0%, blood culture-30.8%, ELISA IgM-64.8% and ELISA IgG-56.1%. Sensitivity of test methods was different in the different stages of illness. It is necessary to use combination of different assessments such are blood culture, Rose Bengal test and ELISA in order to make sure the diagnosis. Rose Bengal test is excellent for the screening. Blood culture is usually a method of choice for the diagnosis acute contamination. ELISA is usually a very good method for the diagnostic chronic disease and relapse. Keywords: genus should comprise only one species – and that the other species should be considered as biovars (5,6,7). Brucellosis is usually primarily an animal disease, and in them it passes as an asymptomatic chronic contamination. Infections of humans are followed by outspread of brucel-losis in animals. It is usually a professional disease of cattle-breeders, farmers, butchers and users of their family, veterinarians and laboratory workers because of transmission ways (direct contact, aerosol inhalation, food). In humans, brucellosis behaves as a systemic contamination with a very heterogeneous clinical spectrum. The disease usually presents as fever with no apparent focus, although there are focal forms in 20-40% of cases. The diagnosis of brucellosis in the country without any experiences with this kind of contamination may be very dif- ficult. Early diagnostic Rabbit Polyclonal to CCDC102A of brucellosis and inclusion of adequate antibiotic therapy have a crucial importance for patients, especially for the protection development complications and appearance relapses of disease. As the clinical picture in humans brucellosis is fairly non-specific, a definitive diagnosis requires isolation of causative organism, or the demonstration of high levels of specific antibodies, or seroconversion (8). The blood culture is usually method of choice, but specimens should be taken in the early stage of the disease. The incubation of the blood culture takes a long time, be-tween five to ten days. The isolation IWP-4 of the bacterium is usually proceeding of the biological hazard for the laboratory staff. Brucellosis is one of the most common laboratory acquired infections (9). The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based laboratory assessments have been proposed in the last few years (5,6,7). PCR is usually a very expensive test and it can not be considered as a routine diagnostic method yet. These limitations make serology the most useful tool for the laboratory diagnosis of the Brucella contamination. The antibody detection is not usually sufficient to indicate the presence of active contamination especially in the endemic areas in which equivocal serologic profiles among affect-ed individuals are frequent (10,11,12,13). Several reports dealing with the significance of various laboratory assessments in the diagnosis of brucellosis have been published (14,15,16,17). The present study deals with usefulness and significance of blood culture and serology assessments in the diagnosis of the human brucellosis. The main purpose of this work was to evaluate diagnostics methods: Rose Bengal test, blood culture and ELISA IgM and IgG in order to design diagnostic protocol relevant IWP-4 in hospitals. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study included 91 brucellosis patients in period 2004 to 2007. All patients were treated at the Medical center for Infec-tious Diseases, University or college of Sarajevo Clinics Centre. The average age of patients was 35, 9 years of life-range from 0,6 to 70 (Table 1.). Most of the cases were between 41 and 50 years (Table 2.). Gender structure of patients was: 66 (72,5%) males and 25 (27,5%) females (Table 3). All the laboratories screening for brucellosis was performed at the Institute of microbiology, immunol-ogy and parasitology, University or college of Sarajevo Clinics Centre. The disease was diagnosed by positive blood-culture results and/or by positive relevant serological test results IWP-4 (ELISA, Rose-Bengal latex agglutination). TABLE 1 The average age of patients Open in a separate windows TABLE 2 Age structure of patients Open in a separate windows TABLE 3 Gender structure of patients Open in a separate window Blood culture The blood culture was performed by inoculation 8-10 cm3 of freshly collected blood into each of Plus aerobic/F BACTEC bottle and incubation for up to seven days in the BACTEC 9120 semi-automated systems (Becton-Dickinson Diagnostic Devices Systems, Maryland, USA). Bottles were examined for the.