The question of how long to treat Borrelia burgdorferi infection is a topic that provokes confusion among a large number of physicians. As pointed out by Kowalski et al [1] in this issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, many physicians tend to use longer courses of antibiotics for Lyme disease than they would for other bacterial infections. A few physicians advocate prolonged courses of antibio...

Benign Migratory Glossitis (BMG) has been known by a variety of names including geographic tongue, erythema migrans and wandering rash of the tongue. It is not an uncommon condition and surveys showed a prevalence of below three percent in the North Americans (McCarthy 1941, Halperin 1953, and Redman 1970), and the condition may be found at any age. The male to female ratio being 1:2 (Halperin ...

BACKGROUND Tick-borne diseases are the most prevalent vector-borne diseases in Europe. Knowledge on the incidence and clinical presentation of other tick-borne diseases than Lyme borreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis is minimal, despite the high human exposure to these pathogens through tick bites. Using molecular detection techniques, the frequency of tick-borne infections after exposure thr...

To improve yield, 6 3-mL plasma cultures (18 mL total) were established for adult patients with early Lyme disease associated with erythema migrans. Borrelia burgdorferi was recovered from the blood of 22 (44.0%) of 50 evaluable patients. The recovery rate per plasma culture and the frequency of positive results for plasma cultures for individual patients were consistent with a level of spiroch...

BACKGROUND Lyme disease, caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, is the most common tick-borne infection in the United States. Although humans can be infected by at least 16 different strains of B. burgdorferi, the overwhelming majority of infections are due to only four strains. It was recently demonstrated that patients who are treated for early Lyme disease develop immunity to the specific strain of...

We investigated the epidemiology of Lyme borreliosis (LB) in Finland for the period 1995-2014 by using data from 3 different healthcare registers. We reviewed data on disseminated LB cases from the National Infectious Diseases Register (21,051 cases) and the National Hospital Discharge Register (10,402 cases) and data on primary LB (erythema migrans) cases from the Register for Primary Health C...

Limits of the Traditional Approach The traditional approach is limited because these tests measure antibodies to the whole Borrelia burgdorferi organism (called wholecell antibodies). Whole-cell antibodies elevate after exposure or vaccination, and often remain elevated after successful treatment. Traditionally, dogs are only tested after clinical signs are evident. The lack of early clinical s...

Southern Sweden is an area of Lyme borreliosis (LB) endemicity, with an incidence of 69 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The most frequent clinical manifestations are erythema migrans (77%) and neuroborreliosis (16%). There was no record of human Borrelia strains being isolated from patients in this region before the prospective study reported here. Borrelia spirochetes were isolated from skin an...