A Longitudinal Study of a Large Clinical Cohort of Patients with Lyme Disease and Tick-Borne Co-Infections Treated with Combination Antibiotics.

The rising prevalence of tick-borne infections (TBIs) necessitates further attention. This study retrospectively investigated the types of TBIs, symptoms, and if combination antibiotics were helpful within a patient cohort at an infectious disease clinic in Ireland. In this chart audit of 301 individuals (184 female, 117 male) tested for TBIs, 140 (46.51%) had positive antibody responses for TBIs from an ELISA (enzyme-linked immunoassay) that was based on a modified two-tiered testing protocol. A total of 93 (66.43%) patients had positive antibody responses to one TBI: 83 (59.29%) for Borrelia, 7 (5.00%) for Rickettsia, and 1 (0.71%) each for either Babesia, Bartonella, or Ehrlichia. The remaining 47 (33.57%) patients were infected with multiple TBIs. These patients were treated with combination antibiotics and monitored at two subsequent follow-ups. Only 2 of 101 patients (1.98%) had discontinued treatment by the second follow-up. In the first follow-up with 118 patients, 70 (59.32%) reported pain and 48 (40.68%) had neurological symptoms. In the next follow-up of 101 patients, 41 (40.59%) had pain while 30 (29.70%) had neurological symptoms. There were statistically significant reductions in the incidence of pain (41.43%) and neurological (37.50%) symptoms between follow-ups. Thus, our study demonstrates that combination antibiotics effectively relieve TBI symptoms with good patient tolerance.

Clinical Course, Serologic Response, and Long-Term Outcome in Elderly Patients with Early Lyme Borreliosis.

Infected elderly people often present with signs and symptoms that differ from those in younger adults, but data on the association between patient age and presentation of early Lyme borreliosis (LB) are limited. In this study, the association between patient age (18⁻44 years, young vs. 45⁻64 years, middle-aged vs. ≥ 65 years, elderly) and disease course, microbiologic characteristics, and the long-term outcome of treatment was investigated prospectively in 1220 adult patients with early LB manifesting as erythema migrans (EM) at a single-center university hospital. Patients were assessed at enrolment and followed-up for 12 months. Age was associated with comorbidities, previous LB, presenting with multiple EM, and seropositivity to borreliae at enrolment. The time to resolution of EM after starting antibiotic treatment was longer in older patients. At 12 months, 59/989 (6.0%) patients showed incomplete response. The odds for incomplete response decreased with time from enrolment (odds ratio (OR) of 0.49, 0.50, and 0.48 for 2-month vs. 14-days, 6-month vs. 2-month, and 12-month vs. 6-month follow-up visits, respectively), but were higher with advancing age (OR 1.57 for middle-aged vs. young, and 1.95 for elderly vs. young), in women (OR 1.41, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01⁻1.96), in patients who reported LB-associated constitutional symptoms at enrolment (OR 7.69, 95% CI 5.39⁻10.97), and in those who presented with disseminated disease (OR 1.65, 95% CI 1.09⁻2.51). The long-term outcome of EM was excellent in patients of all age groups. However, older patients had slower resolution of EM and higher odds for an unfavorable outcome of treatment (OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.05⁻2.34 for middle-aged vs. young; and OR 1.95, 95% CI 1.14⁻3.32 for elderly vs. young), manifested predominantly as post-LB symptoms. The presence of LB-associated constitutional symptoms at enrolment was the strongest predictor of incomplete response.