Troublemaker. Ixodes scapularis ticks can carry the bacteria responsible for Lyme disease.
Lyme disease, the tick -Internet bane from the outside, has scientists scratching their heads. The controversy over how to treat the disease continues this week with two studies in the June 12 issue of New England Journal of Medicine . A team contests the use of antibiotics to treat persistent symptoms of Lyme disease; another suggests that preventive antibiotics can reduce the risk of contracting the disease.
The symptoms of acute Lyme disease, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi include a round rash of the skin, flu-like malaise, and seal the pain and stiffness. Antibiotics usually cure the infection and prevent long-term damage. But sometimes, patients who have recovered from the acute illness suffer from what is called post-Lyme disease syndrome characterized by chronic muscle pain, headache and fatigue.
No one knows what causes these long-term complications or how best to treat, so a team led by an infectious disease specialist Mark Klempner of the medical school of the University of Boston decided to test the antibiotics, some doctors use to treat the syndrome. The team worked with 107 patients with post-Lyme disease syndrome. Half received intravenous and oral antibiotics for 0 days; others placebos. Antibiotics do nothing special. About half of the people in each group improved
"long-term antibiotic treatment does not seem to be the answer" post-Lyme disease syndrome, says pediatrician and specialist in Eugene Shapiro Lyme disease medical school from Yale University.
A second study focuses on Lyme disease in its early stages. A team led by an infectious disease specialist Robert Nadelman the Westchester Medical Center in New York studied 482 people who had removed a potential carriers of tick skin diseases in the past 72 hours. Each patient was randomly assigned either a single dose of oral antibiotic or a placebo. In this case, the antibiotic appeared to help: 0.4% of those given antibiotics developed Lyme disease, against 3.2% of those receiving placebo
Although prophylactic antibiotics appear to work they can not tell the difference. in the big picture. The study shows that the risk of Lyme disease is low, Shapiro said, even in Westchester County, New York - one of the most hazardous areas of the country. And because many cases result of Lyme disease not recognized tick bites, he said, it is "unlikely" that preventive antibiotics will significantly reduce the overall incidence of Lyme disease.
Related Sites
Lyme Disease Resource Center
Information NIH Lyme disease
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