[Campylobacter jejuni gastroenteritis].

Abstract

Acute gastroenteritis is a major cause of hospital admission with attendant morbidity and occasional mortality. Campylobacter jejuni recently has been recognized as a common cause of acute bacterial gastroenteritis in children and adults. Its frequency of isolation is comparable to and in many studies exceeds that of Salmonella isolations from diarrheal stools of hospitalized patients. Medical workers in many parts of the world confirmed that Campylobacter jejuni was found more commonly in feces in diarrheic than in non-diarrheic people. The feces is loose to watery and commonly contains blood and leukocytes. Although, Campylobacter jejuni has been isolated from feces and gallbladder of healthy and diarrheic animals, until now, to our knowledge, there is no report on the isolation of the microorganism from healthy or diarrheic subjects in Turkey. This paper reports three human infections found to have Campylobacter jejuni in their stools as part of our ongoing investigation of the incidence of diarrheal disease due to this organism.