Neurobrucellosis

Brucellosis is one of the most common zoonotic infections in many parts of the world including the Mediterranean countries and Middle East, Central Asia, India, Central and South America (Gul HC, Erdem H. Brucellosis (Brucella species). In: Bennett JE, Dolin R, Blaser MJ (eds) Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett’s principles and practice of infectious diseases. Elsevier Saunders, Philadelphi, pp 2584–2589, 2015; Pappas et al. N Engl J Med 352:2325–2336, 2005). Brucellosis is caused by the bacterial genus Brucella. Brucella is a small gram- negative, non motile and facultative intracellular bacterium. Among the Brucella species (spp.), B. melitensis, B. abortus, B. suis, and B. canis are the most common causative agents of brucellosis in humans (Franco et al. Lancet Infect Dis 7:775–786, 2007). In neurobrucellosis (NB), the most commonly B. melitensis and B. abortus and less commonly B. suis are the causative species (Wallach et al. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 21:760–762, 2002; Kutlu et al. J Infect Public Health 9:675–678, 2016). B. ceti and B. pinnipedialis which were isolated from marine mammals, were reported as the responsible agents of intracranial granuloma formation (Sohn et al. Emerg Infect Dis 9:485–488, 2003). B. neotomae was reported to be isolated from cerebrospinal fluid samples from two patients with NB (Suárez-Esquivel et al. Emerg Infect Dis 23:997–1000, 2017). Although there are few studies about the effect of different species in the pathogenesis of the human brucellosis (Dokuzoğuz et al. J Infect 50:41–5, 2005; Troy et al. Medicine (Baltimore) 84:174–187, 2005) virulence and neurotropisim of B. melitensis are considered to be higher than the other species. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.