Acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans: clinical and microbiological characteristics of a cohort of 693 Slovenian patients.

BACKGROUND: Information on large groups of patients with acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans (ACA) is limited. METHODS: We assessed clinical and microbiological characteristics of patients with ACA diagnosed at a single medical centre and compared findings in periods 1991-2004 vs. 2005-2018. The cohort is representative of Slovenian ACA patients. RESULTS: We assessed 693 patients: 461 females and 232 males, with median age of 64 years. Median duration of ACA before diagnosis was 12 months. In all but 2 patients, the skin lesions were located on extremities, more often on the lower (70.0%) than the upper (45.2%), bilaterally in 42.4%. Reddish-blue discoloration, swelling, thinning and wrinkling of skin were present in 95.2%, 28.1%, 46.4% and 20.5% of patients, respectively. Overall, 64.4% of patients reported constitutional symptoms, 23.1% had local symptoms, and 20.8% had symptoms/signs of peripheral neuropathy. Nodules, arthritis, joint deformity, muscle atrophy and paresis were rare (<3%). Borreliae were isolated from 200/664 (30.1%) skin samples; 92.8% were Borrelia afzelii. B. garinii and B. burgdorferi s.s. were more often isolated from the skin of male patients (OR = 4.17) and from those with arthropathy (OR = 11.74). Patients included in the more recent period were older, complained less often of constitutional symptoms but more often of local symptoms, and more often had local swelling but less often skin atrophy and bilateral involvement, probably as a consequence of earlier diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: ACA, typically caused by B. afzelii, usually affects older women. Clinical presentation depends on the duration of illness and probably on the Borrelia species causing the disease.

Isolation of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato from blood of adult patients with borrelial lymphocytoma, Lyme neuroborreliosis, Lyme arthritis and acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans.

BACKGROUND: Reports on patients with European Lyme borreliosis in whom borreliae were isolated from the blood are rare and nearly exclusively limited to those with solitary or multiple erythema migrans. Here we report on patients with other manifestations of Lyme borreliosis in whom borreliae were isolated from their blood. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective review of the medical files of patients diagnosed with borrelial lymphocytoma, Lyme neuroborreliosis, Lyme arthritis and acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans at the Department of Infectious Diseases of the UMC Ljubljana, Slovenia, for whom a borrelia blood culture was ordered. The clinical features of patients whose blood culture tested positive for Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato were reviewed, and the association between the proportion of patients with a positive blood culture and various clinical manifestations was examined. RESULTS: Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato was isolated from the blood of 1/53 (1.9%) patients with borrelial lymphocytoma, 6/176 (3.4%) patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis, 1/13 (7.7%) patients with Lyme arthritis, and 3/200 (1.5%) patients with acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans. The time interval from the onset of symptoms attributed to Lyme borreliosis and the blood culture ranged from 1 day to >2 years (median 3.5 weeks). At the time of the blood culture, erythema migrans was present in 4/11 (36.4%) borrelia blood culture-positive patients, i.e. in the patient with borrelial lymphocytoma, the patient with Lyme arthritis and the 2/6 patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis. Only two of these 11 (18.2%) patients had fever at the time of the blood culture. CONCLUSIONS: In European patients with Lyme borreliosis, borreliae can be cultured from the blood not only early in the course of the disease but also occasionally later during disease progression.

Diagnostic value of cytokines and chemokines in lyme neuroborreliosis.

The aims of the present study were to assess the concentrations of different cytokines and chemokines in blood serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples of patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis and to identify the possible marker(s) that would enable a distinction between clinically evident and suspected Lyme neuroborreliosis, as well as between Lyme neuroborreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). Our additional interest was to evaluate the relationship between cytokine and chemokine concentrations and Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato isolation from CSF, as well as intrathecal synthesis of specific borrelial antibodies. We found that higher concentrations of CXCL13 and lower concentrations of interleukin 10 (IL-10) in serum were associated with higher odds for clinically evident Lyme neuroborreliosis compared to suspected Lyme neuroborreliosis, as well as to TBE. The concentrations of IL-2, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, and CXCL13 in the CSF were higher in patients with evident Lyme neuroborreliosis than in those who were only suspected to have the disease. A comparison of CSF cytokine and chemokine levels in patients with and without intrathecal synthesis of specific borrelial antibodies revealed that CXCL13 CSF concentration is significantly associated with intrathecal synthesis of borrelial antibodies. A comparison of the cytokine and chemokine CSF concentrations in patients with clinically evident Lyme neuroborreliosis according to CSF culture results revealed that higher concentrations of gamma interferon (IFN-γ) were associated with lower odds of Borrelia isolation. Although several differences in the blood serum and CSF concentrations of various cytokines and chemokines between the groups were found, the distinctive power of the majority of these findings is low. Further research on well-defined groups of patients is needed to appraise the potential diagnostic usefulness of these concentrations.