Rare parotid abscess traced to brucellosis in a sheep farmer

A 65-year-old sheep breeder in Gansu province, in northwestern China, developed a rare complication of brucellosis: an abscess in the parotid salivary gland. Physicians identified Brucella species in the culture of fluid drained from the abscess, and the case, published as an open-access case report in BMC Infectious Diseases, describes how antibiotic treatment combined with local drainage resolved the infection without the need for formal surgical incision or removal of the gland. The man's illness had unfolded in stages.

He had lived with lower back pain for two years and pain in his right knee for six months before a 20-day history of pain, swelling, and redness on the right side of his neck prompted medical attention. Taken together, the findings led the clinical team to diagnose both a parotid abscess and spondylitis—inflammation of the vertebrae—caused by brucellosis. Brucellosis is a systemic infectious disease capable of damaging one or multiple organs, and its symptoms are often nonspecific, which can make diagnosis difficult.

Localized abscess formation secondary to the infection has been reported in various organs, including the spleen and liver, but abscesses of the parotid gland are described as a rare event in the medical literature. The diagnostic turning point in this case came from the abscess drainage fluid itself: culturing it yielded Brucella species, directly linking the neck mass to the infection. This direct microbiological evidence supported the combined diagnosis of parotid abscess and spondylitis due to brucellosis in the same patient.

Management relied on antibiotics together with local drainage of the abscess. According to the report, this approach achieved clinical improvement, and the more invasive alternatives—a formal surgical incision to open the abscess or a parotidectomy, the surgical removal of the parotid gland—were avoided. The authors present the case as offering clinical experience for the diagnosis and management of this brucellosis-associated complication.

As a single case report, the study documents one patient's course rather than comparing treatments across groups, so its conclusions are limited to the clinical experience described. Nevertheless, the authors argue that parotid abscess should be recognized as a rare complication of brucellosis, and that in this patient, antibiotic therapy paired with drainage was sufficient to achieve clinical improvement while sparing the gland itself.

Subject of Research: A rare case of parotid abscess caused by brucellosis in a sheep farmer

Article Title: Parotid abscess due to brucellosis: a case report

Article References: Yang, Y., Yang, Z., Liu, X., Wang, L., & Li, J. (2026). Parotid abscess due to brucellosis: a case report. BMC Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-026-14721-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12879-026-14721-5

Keywords: brucellosis, parotid abscess, case report, Brucella, zoonotic disease, spondylitis, Gansu, sheep farming, antibiotic treatment, BMC Infectious Diseases, Parotid, abscess