Quantitative bacterial counts in the bone marrow of Vietnamese patients with typhoid fever

Pham, Van Be Bay, Wain, John, Phuong, Le Thi, Ho, Vo Anh, Tran, Tinh Hien and Parry, Christopher (2022) 'Quantitative bacterial counts in the bone marrow of Vietnamese patients with typhoid fever'. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Vol 116, Issue 8, pp. 736-744.

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Abstract

Background
Bone marrow culture (BMC) is the reference standard for typhoid fever diagnosis. We studied the additional yield of BMC over blood culture (BC) and the relationship between quantitative BMC counts and severe disease.

Methods
Hospitalised Vietnamese patients with suspected typhoid fever were prospectively investigated with a BC, BMC, faecal culture and quantitative BMC counts.

Results
Salmonella typhi was isolated in 195 of 231 patients: from BC and BMC in 144 (73.8%), from BMC alone in 33 (16.9%), from BC alone in 12 (6.2%) and from faeces alone in 6 (3.1%). In 167 patients the median extracellular count of S. typhi was 2.5 cfu/mL (interquartile range [IQR] 0–10) and the intracellular count was 10.5 cfu/mL (IQR 2–42) with a ratio of 1.3 bacteria/cell (IQR 0.6–2.5). The median count of intracellular bacteria in 24 patients with severe disease was 46 bacteria/cell (IQR 9–105) compared with 6.5 bacteria/cell (IQR 2–34) in 143 with non-severe disease (p=0.005). The intracellular BMC count was negatively correlated with the peripheral white cell count and positively correlated with hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, aspartate transaminase, a positive BC and the fever clearance time following treatment with azithromycin, ofloxacin or a combination of the two.

Conclusions
BMC gave a moderate additional yield over BC. Intracellular BMC counts may reflect the bacterial load in typhoid fever.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	WC Communicable Diseases > Infection. Bacterial Infections > Bacterial Infections > WC 200 Bacterial infections (General or not elsewhere classified) WC Communicable Diseases > Infection. Bacterial Infections > Enteric Infections > WC 270 Typhoid fever WH Hemic and Lymphatic Systems > Hematologic Diseases. Immunologic Factors. Blood Banks > WH 380 Bone marrow
Faculty: Department:	Clinical Sciences & International Health > Clinical Sciences Department
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1093/trstmh/trac003
Depositing User:	Julie Franco
Date Deposited:	21 Feb 2022 13:23
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2023 09:10
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/19828

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