Transient electrocardiographic changes during two episodes of relapsing brucellosis

Abstract

Summary Cardiac involvement in the course of acute brucellosis is rare and, when present, is usually manifested by endocarditis. Myocarditis is very infrequent and in the few reported cases, the course of the disease was fulminant. A patient with recurrent brucellosis who presented transient electrocardiographic T wave changes during two episodes of acute illness is reported. It is suggested that the patient had minor asymptomatic myocarditis in the course of recurrent brucellosis.

Unusual cardiovascular complications of brucellosis presenting in two men: two case reports and a review of the literature

“…However, in the absence of concomitant Brucella -related endocarditis, development of pericardial effusion and/or myocarditis seems to be extremely rare [ 1 , 2 , 11 - 18 ]. Indeed, when we searched in the MEDLINE database for articles published between 1984 and 2010 using the words 'pericarditis', 'myocarditis' and 'brucellosis', we identified only 11 reports in the English literature of adult patients with brucellosis including 14 patients with appropriate information for analysis on brucellosis-related pericarditis or myocarditis in the absence of concomitant endocarditis [ 2 , 12 , 14 , 17 , 19 - 25 ] (Table 1 ). In addition, pericarditis or myocarditis was not reported in any recently reported cases (>200) of brucellosis [ 1 , 13 ].…”