Reinfection in patients with Lyme disease.

Reinfection versus relapse in patients with lyme disease: not enough evidence.

Antibiotic treatment duration and long-term outcomes of patients with early lyme disease from a lyme disease-hyperendemic area.

BACKGROUND The length of antibiotic therapy and long-term outcomes in patients with early Lyme disease are incompletely described. We report the long-term clinical outcomes of patients with early localized and early disseminated Lyme disease based on the duration of antibiotic therapy prescribed. METHODS A retrospective cohort study and follow-up survey of patients diagnosed as having early l...

Culture-confirmed reinfection of a person with different strains of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto.

In recent years, the utility of serum-based diagnostic testing for Lyme disease has improved substantially; however, recovery by culture of the bacterium from skin biopsies of suspected patients is still the only definitive laboratory test. Reinfection of patients has been assumed to occur but as yet has not been documented by serial isolates from the same person. We present a case of culture-c...

Differentiation of reinfection from relapse in recurrent Lyme disease.

BACKGROUND Erythema migrans is the most common manifestation of Lyme disease. Recurrences are not uncommon, and although they are usually attributed to reinfection rather than relapse of the original infection, this remains somewhat controversial. We used molecular typing of Borrelia burgdorferi isolates obtained from patients with culture-confirmed episodes of erythema migrans to distinguish b...

Reinfection versus relapse in Lyme disease.

To the Editor: Nadelman et al. (Nov. 15 issue)1 report that patients may be reinfected with different genotypes of Borrelia burgdorferi. Their observations, however, do not provide evidence that patients with continuing symptoms (i.e., patients with what is often termed chronic Lyme disease or post–Lyme disease syndrome) are not persistently infected. Although bacteria may be cultured from init...