Chest
Acute Q Fever Pneumonia: A Review of 80 Hospitalized Patients
Section snippets
MATERIALS AND METHODS
We retrospectively studied 80 consecutive patients with Q fever pneumonia who were admitted to the Department of Pneumology and in the Department of Infectious Diseases from 1982 to 1996. The diagnosis of acute Q fever pneumonia was confirmed in all of them, excluding any epidemic situation, and in accordance with the following criteria.
RESULTS
Eighty patients (62 male and 18 female) whose mean ± SD age was 49 ± 20 years have been included in this study. Thirty-nine patients were admitted to the Department of Pneumology while 41 patients were hospitalized in the Department of Infectious Disease. A smoking habit was found in 42% of the patients, and 51% of them had no medical history. No one was known to be immunosuppressed. Thirty-five patients (43%) were characterized as having urban lifestyles and the others were characterized as
DISCUSSION
We present the results of a retrospective study whose goal was to analyze the clinical, biological, and radiologic characteristics of numerous hospitalized patients with confirmed acute Q fever pneumonia in order to attempt to point out parameters that could help diagnostic orientation and contribute to the choice of adapted therapy.
Q fever is a ubiquitous zoonose caused by the rickettsial organism C burnetii. The presence of a positive serology in asymptomatic people was found to have a varied
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank R. Pendergast for his collaboration and his linguistic assistance.
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Manuscript received October 17, 1997; revision accepted March 19, 1998.