Lyme Science Blog

In the short run, we can kill ticks, explains Hodo and colleagues. “Controlled burns may affect tick populations, pathogen prevalence, and risk of pathogen exposure to humans and animals and therefore may be a useful tool in integrated tick management.” wrote Hodo in an article addressing killing ticks. “We found a marked difference in density […]

Lyme disease can lead to acute and chronic illness. But deaths from Lyme disease can occur. “Death can occur when Lyme carditis is untreated,” wrote Marx, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the Annuals of Internal Medicine. “Before this report, only 9 fatal cases were reported in the literature.” Case 1:

Bannwarth syndrome is typically seen in Europe. However, in 2017 doctors from Mayo Clinic described 5 patients with the disease living in Minnesota and Wisconsin. All of the patients presented with peripheral neuropathy. Now, a 2019 case report by Diaz ¹  describes a 60-year-old man from the United States with a variant Bannwarth syndrome. The man

There is growing evidence supporting the existence and severity of chronic manifestations of Lyme disease despite recent treatment guidelines for Lyme disease. Studies have found that at least 1 in 3 patients treated for Lyme disease remained ill years after treatment. Furthermore, 4 clinical trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Medicine (NIH) documented the

In their article addressing the heart and Lyme disease “Increasing Burden of Lyme Carditis in United States Children’s Hospitals,” Beach et al.¹ reveal the rise in Lyme carditis cases throughout the U.S. The largest increases, they write, were found in the Midwest, including the Ohio valley. According to the authors, the children with Lyme carditis

The authors review the role of medical imaging for various infectious diseases including the Zika virus, measles, influenza, Chagas disease, syphilis, and Lyme disease. The authors include a discussion of a brain MRI in Lyme disease. Although it is uncommon, Lyme disease patients have presented with positive radiologic findings, writes Alves Simão. Test results, however,

Koetsveld and colleagues examined C6 reactivity in sera from both mice infected with Borrelia miyamotoi and from 46 patients with PCR-positive Borrelia miyamotoi disease (BMD). Their results support the use of the C6 peptide test used for for Lyme disease as an indication of borrelia miyamotoi test They found, “Cross-reactivity against the C6-peptide was confirmed

Antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) are intended to slow down disease progression. Synthetic DMARDs include methotrexate and sulfasalazine. Biological DMARDs include the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), blockers infliximab (Remicade®), interleukin 1 blockers anakinra (Kineret®), and monoclonal antibodies against B cells (such as rituximab) and the T cell costimulation blocker abatacept (ORENCIA®). The article addressed the factors

Multiple studies indicate that neurotransmitter levels can be “related to measures of behavioral outcomes, such as memory, reaction timing,” writes Oeltzschner in the journal Neurobiology of Aging. “These relationships can be region-specific.” Their results might lead to new insights to the brain of Lyme disease patients. Measuring these levels, he adds, “could be a promising

Patients who did not receive antibiotics or who had delayed antibiotic treatment had approximately twice as many hospital admissions than patients who had been prescribed antibiotics as soon as symptoms appeared. This paper offers insight into the risk of antibiotic stewardship for Lyme disease. According to their study, more than 13% of the patients did