Relevance of in vitro antimicrobial susceptibility of Brucella melitensis to relapse rate in human brucellosis

Abstract

The in vitro susceptibility of Brucella melitensis was examined vis-a-vis the clinical outcome in 75 patients with brucellosis. The initial MICs for Brucella isolates from patients who relapsed and from those who did not were similar. Furthermore, the MICs for isolates from patients whose infections relapsed were no different from those for original isolates. Our results clearly showed that neither initial nor subsequent antibiotic susceptibility plays a role in the likelihood of relapse of patients with brucellosis.