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Diagnosis of pseudotuberculosis in children
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
Pseudo-tuberculosis can be suspected in a patient with a combination of scarlet fever-like rash with symptoms of damage to other organs and systems (liver, joints, gastrointestinal tract), especially with prolonged fever and an undulating course. Winter-spring seasonality and group morbidity of people who ate food or water from the same source are important.
Bacteriological and serological research methods are of decisive importance in diagnostics, especially if the disease is not accompanied by characteristic rashes.
The material for bacteriological examination is blood, sputum, feces, urine and washings from the oropharynx. The material is sown both on regular nutrient media and on enrichment media, using the ability of Yersinia to reproduce well at low temperatures (refrigerator conditions). Blood and throat washings should be sown in the first week of the disease, feces and urine - throughout the disease. RA and ELISA are used as serological tests. PCR and the immunofluorescence method are also used for emergency diagnostics. In practice, RA is most often used, while live reference cultures of pseudo-tuberculosis strains are used as an antigen, and if an autostrain is present, it is introduced into the reaction as an additional antigen. A titer of 1:80 or higher is considered diagnostic. Blood is taken at the onset of the disease and at the end of the 2nd-3rd week from the onset of the disease.
Differential diagnostics
Pseudotuberculosis must be differentiated from scarlet fever, measles, enterovirus infection, rheumatism, viral hepatitis, sepsis, typhoid-like diseases, etc.
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