BACKGROUND Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States, and the number of reported cases has more than doubled between 1992 and 2008. Few studies have explicitly examined sex-based differences in the clinical presentation of or serologic response to early Lyme disease. It is unknown whether the sex-based variability observed in other infectious diseases is relevant...

We report a case of visceral larva migrans in an adult with fever, night sweats, weight loss, hilar and mediastinal lymphadenopathy, bilateral pleural effusion, and eosinophilia-mimicking lymphoma. Visceral larva migrans was diagnosed subsequently because of negative findings for malignancy and positive serologic test result for Toxocara canis. Progressive improvement was observed with albendaz...

Autochthonous transmission of the Chagas disease parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, was detected in a patient in rural New Orleans, Louisiana. The patient had positive test results from 2 serologic tests and hemoculture. Fifty-six percent of 18 Triatoma sanguisuga collected from the house of the patient were positive for T. cruzi by PCR.

There are few reports in the literature of hepatitis as a manifestation of parvovirus B19 infection. We describe a case of parvovirus B19-associated acute hepatitis diagnosed based on a positive serologic test (IgM) and molecular detection of parvovirus B19 DNA in a liver biopsy specimen. Parvovirus B19 infection should be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients presenting with acu...

We describe a case of Brazilian spotted fever in a previously healthy young woman who died with petechial rash associated to acute renal and respiratory insufficiency 12 days following fever, headache, myalgia, and diarrhea. Serologic test in a serum sample, using an immunofluorescence assay, revealed reactive IgM/IgG.

The rK39 test is a serologic assay for the rapid diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis (VL). Serum from a North American cohort of 59 otherwise asymptomatic soldiers with cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) was tested with the rK39 dipstick and ELISA assays, and 10.2% and 28.8% had positive results, respectively. CL is associated with a reactive rK39 assay result in some patients without clinical eviden...

We assessed the performance of a recently validated real-time PCR assay and a commercially available microimmunofluorescence serologic test for the detection of Chlamydophila pneumoniae infection during an outbreak. Evaluation of specimens from 137 individuals suggests that real-time PCR holds greater utility as a diagnostic tool for early C. pneumoniae detection.

We performed a serologic investigation to determine whether orthobunyaviruses commonly infect humans in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Orthobunyavirus-specific antibodies were detected by plaque reduction neutralization test in 146 (18%) of 823 persons tested. Further studies are needed to determine health risks for humans from this potentially deadly group of viruses.

Serologic tests for the detection of Salmonella serotype Enteritidis in children may become supplementary to stool culture examination. A total of 190 children were examined with a new 1-step, 2-minute test (TUBEX) that detects anti-Salmonella immunoglobulin M antibodies, which was found to be 92.6% sensitive and 94.8% specific (P<.0001).

We investigated the kinetics of serologic responses to Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection by using virus neutralization and MERS-CoV S1 IgG ELISA tests. In most patients, robust antibody responses developed by the third week of illness. Delayed antibody responses with the neutralization test were associated with more severe disease.