Lyme borreliosis – the most common vector-borne tick-borne infectious disease in all countries of the Northern Hemisphere. About 100,000 cases of tick-borne borreliosis are registered annually in the United States alone. The disease is transmitted to humans by sucking the ixodid tick, which is its main epidemiological vector. In many cases, Lyme borreliosis does not have specific clinical manifestations and may occur under the guise of other diseases.
Long persistence of Borrelia in the human body contributes to the development of autoimmune processes affecting many organs and systems.
Therefore, the timely diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis is of great importance. For more information about what methods of laboratory diagnostics are used in our time to confirm the diagnosis of tick-borne borreliosis, read on estet-portal.com in this article.
Erythema annulus – pathognomonic clinical sign of Lyme borreliosis
The pathognomonic clinical sign of Lyme borreliosis is erythema migrans annulare, which occurs at the site of an ixodid tick bite.
Erythema annulare treatment: the most effective methods
If, at the same time, the epidemiological history of the patient contains data on his stay in the forest and the bite of an ixodid tick, additional research methods are not required.
About 30% of cases of tick-borne borreliosis occur without specific annular erythema and require additional research methods.
For more information about modern laboratory diagnostic methods used to confirm the diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis, read further in the article.
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Serological diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis: ELISA and RNIF methods
Specific diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis is to conduct a serological study – detection of IgM and IgG antibodies to Borrelia by ELISA (enzymatic immunoassay) and RNIF (indirect immunofluorescence reactions). Antibodies of the Ig M class can be identified two weeks after a person is infected with Lyme disease. They reach their maximum number after six weeks.
IgG antibodies can be detected as early as the third week of illness, with a peak in the third month of Lyme disease. To diagnose the disease, an increase in antibody titer in the dynamics of the infectious process is taken into account. However, negative results do not always indicate the absence of infection. Antibodies of the IgM class can be detected years after the onset of infection and confuse even an experienced clinician diagnostically. In doubtful cases, immunoblotting should be used.
Lyme Disease: Symptoms, Treatment, Causes
Immunoblotting – the most specific method for diagnosing Lyme borreliosis
Immunoblotting – method of identifying antibodies to specific pathogen antigens.
In Lyme borreliosis, it is possible to identify ten Borrelia antigens by immunoblotting.
OspC (outer surface protein C) is the most significant of all Borrelia antigens for diagnosing the acute period of tick-borne borreliosis. In the case of the presence of antibodies to other types of Borrelia antigens (p17, p 19, v 21) against the background of the absence of Ig M class antibodies to the OspC antigen, the diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis is doubtful.
It is advisable to repeat the study in 3-4 weeks. In addition, in the early stages of the disease, it is possible to detect antibodies of the Ig M class to fragelin (p 41).
Detection of antibodies to p18 and p100 antigens indicates a long-term infection with Lyme borreliosis. The VlsE antigen (surface-exposed lipoprotein of Borrelia burgdorferi) has the highest sensitivity for detecting IgG class antibodies.
This protein is the main antigen in the serological diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis due to the non-specific detection of common IgM in the later stages of the disease.
Thus, immunoblotting is a highly specific method for diagnosing Lyme borreliosis, which can be used in doubtful clinical cases of the disease. Thank you for staying with estet-portal.com. Read other interesting articles in the "Dermatology" section. You may also be interested in Tick-borne dermatoses and other summer hazards.
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