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Volume 29, Number 6—June 2023
Synopsis

Association of Persistent Symptoms after Lyme Neuroborreliosis and Increased Levels of Interferon-α in Blood

Sergio A. Hernández, Katarina Ogrinc, Miša Korva, Andrej Kastrin, Petra Bogovič, Tereza Rojko, Keith W. Kelley, Janis J. Weis, Franc Strle, and Klemen StrleComments to Author 
Author affiliations: Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (S.A. Hernández, K. Strle); New York State Department of Health, Albany, New York, USA (S.A. Hernández, K. Strle); University Medical Center Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia (K. Ogrinc, P. Bogovič, T. Rojko, F. Strle}; University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana (M. Korva, A. Kastrin); University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA (K.W. Kelley); University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA (J.J. Weis)

Main Article

Table 1

Clinical characteristics of patients at study entry stratified according to resolution or persistence of symptoms after antimicrobial drug therapy in study of persistent symptoms after Lyme neuroborreliosis and increased levels of interferon-α in blood, Slovenia*

Characteristic Resolved, n = 52 Persistent, n = 27 p value† Adjusted p value‡
Demographics
Age, y 47 (15–81) 52 (15–74) 0.6 0.9
Female/male sex 15 (29)/37 (71) 16 (59)/11 (41) 0.01 0.03
Annual no. tick bites
 2 (0–50)
 1 (0–50)
 0.6
 0.9
Clinical characteristics at first visit
Current or recent EM 19 (37) 9 (33) 0.8 0.9
Solitary EM 14 (27) 8 (30) 0.8 0.9
Multiple EM 5 (10) 1 (4) 0.6 0.9
No. symptoms/patient 3 (1–11) 6 (1–13) 0.02 0.1
Duration of symptoms, days 14 (3–90) 20 (3–365) 0.3 0.9
Radicular pain 14 (27) 9 (33) 0.6 0.9
Peripheral facial palsy
 37 (71)
 20 (74)
 0.9
 0.9
Laboratory findings in blood
CRP, mg/L 1 (1–29) 1 (1–18) 0.2 0.6
ESR, mm/h 10 (2–40) 11 (1–41) 0.7 0.6
Blood leukocyte count, x 109 cells/L 7 (3–23) 6.5 (3–15) 0.2 0.6
Platelet count, x109/L 247 (134–428) 245 (165–416) 0.3 0.8
AST, µkat/L .42 (0.18–1.1) 0.4 (0.24–1.2) 0.8 0.8
ALT, µkat/L
 .43 (0.17–2.3)
 0.39 (0.14–1.8)
 0.5
 0.8
CSF findings
Pleocytosis 52 (100) 27 (100) 1 1
Leukocyte count, x 106 cells/L 73 (6–1,579) 80 (6–806) 0.4 0.9
Lymphocyte count, x 106/L 63 (4–1,477) 69 (4–768) 0.6 1
Borrelia culture positivity 5 (10) 3 (11) 0.9 0.9

*Values are median (range) or no. (%). Bold indicates statistically significant p values. ALT, alanine aminotransferase; AST, aspartate aminotransferase; Borrelia, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato; CRP, C-reactive protein; CSF, cerebrospinal fluid; EM, erythema migrans; ESR, erythrocyte sedimentation rate. †Statistical analyses were performed by using Fisher exact test or Mann-Whitney nonparametric rank-sum test. ‡Values after Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons (false discovery rate = 0.05).

Main Article

Page created: March 23, 2023
Page updated: May 17, 2023
Page reviewed: May 17, 2023
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