Lyme Science Blog

The series by Wormser and colleagues, published in the journal Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease examines the success of treatment after long-term follow-up with eleven patients. [1] All of the patients with LDFP received corticosteroids, in addition to antibiotics. The authors found that 6 of the 11 patients (54.5%) suffered from facial nerve dysfunction an

“Our ignorance is often unbearable and may lead us to turn a blind eye on non-lesional diseases,” explains Raoult from the Aix-Marseille Université in France. [1] Such ignorance, Raoult says, has at times led scientists to believe that some diseases had a “psychiatric cause while they were somatic and could be easily treated.” One could say

Over the years, there has been much discussion and debate over whether reducing the deer population would in turn help lower the risk of Lyme disease, particularly in endemic regions. A 2014 study found that reducing the deer population “dramatically reduced I. scapularis abundance and Lyme disease cases on a Connecticut peninsula.” [1] A study

“We here describe the case of an 83-year-old man for whom we strongly suspect Lyme neuroborreliosis as the etiology of his stroke,” writes Moreno Legast and colleagues in the journal Hindawi Case Reports in Neurological Medicine. [1] The patient was admitted to the emergency room complaining of right-sided weakness and speech difficulties, which had developed

A study in 2003 found that 7 out of 10 children with Lyme disease, who were admitted to an emergency room with an acutely swollen joint, were suspected of having bacterial septic arthritis and underwent surgery, according to Willis. [1] So, can we prevent unnecessary surgery for children with Lyme arthritis? asks Gendelberg from Penn State

While many of these cases may be due to infections acquired when travelling to regions outside of New York City, it is important for clinicians to consider tick-borne diseases in their differential diagnoses in patients living in urban areas. The importance of this is reflected in a recent case study entitled, “A Walk in the

The patient had been living in New York for the past 10 years and only recently returned to Japan to visit family. “The neurologist initially suspected mild tetanus with lockjaw caused by Clostridium tetani infection, which is relatively common in our area,” writes Seki from the division of Infectious Diseases and Infection Control, Tohoku Medical

Ezequiel and colleagues report on the case of a 9-year-old boy from Portugal who was diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri due to Lyme disease. The child “was admitted with daily pulsatile frontotemporal headache, pallor, photophobia and phonophobia, without night awakening, vomiting or visual changes,” writes Ezequiel in the British Medical Journal Case Reports. [1] His neurological

Lyme carditis with heart block can cause non-specific symptoms and be challenging to diagnose. But, “recognizing this early would curtail the progression of conduction disorders and potentially avoid permanent pacemaker implantation,” states lead author Wan from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. The majority of patients (3 out of 5) visited the emergency room multiple times