RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Lymphocyte Transformation Test for Borrelia Detects Active Lyme Borreliosis and Verifies Effective Antibiotic Treatment
Volker von Baehr1, Cornelia Doebis1, Hans-Dieter Volk2, Rüdiger von Baehr1, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
Issue: Suppl 1
First Page: 104
Last Page: 112
Publisher ID: TONEUJ-6-104
DOI: 10.2174/1874205X01206010104
Article History:
Received Date: 28/4/2012Revision Received Date: 22/6/2012
Acceptance Date: 02/7/2012
Electronic publication date: 5/10/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Borrelia-specific antibodies are not detectable until several weeks after infection and even if they are present, they are no proof of an active infection. Since the sensitivity of culture and PCR for the diagnosis or exclusion of borreliosis is too low, a method is required that detects an active Borrelia infection as early as possible. For this purpose, a lymphocyte transformation test (LTT) using lysate antigens of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii and recombinant OspC was developed and validated through investigations of seronegative and seropositive healthy individuals as well as of seropositive patients with clinically manifested borreliosis. The sensitivity of the LTT in clinical borreliosis before antibiotic treatment was determined as 89,4% while the specificity was 98,7%. In 1480 patients with clinically suspected borreliosis, results from serology and LTT were comparable in 79.8% of cases. 18% were serologically positive and LTT-negative. These were mainly patients with borreliosis after antibiotic therapy. 2.2% showed a negative serology and a positive LTT result. Half of them had an early erythema migrans. Following antibiotic treatment, the LTT became negative or borderline in patients with early manifestations of borreliosis, whereas in patients with late symptoms, it showed a regression while still remaining positive. Therefore, we propose the follow-up monitoring of dis-seminated Borrelia infections as the main indication for the Borrelia-LTT.
