Follow-up of antibiotically treated and untreated neuroborreliosis

Abstract

Follow‐up of 57 patients who suffered from antibiotically untreated acute, monophasic neuroborreliosis 5 to 27 years ago shows no significant difference in comparison with the follow‐up of 66 patients who suffered from antibiotically treated acute, monophasic neuroborreliosis during the last 5 years. In both groups, the involution of clinical symptoms and the normalization of pathological CSF findings were nearly identical. We found no significant difference of sequelae between the groups. Following acute neuroborreliosis, neither the antibiotically untreated nor the antibiotically treated patients developed chronic neuroborreliosis. Only in rare cases of primary chronic neuroborreliosis with CNS involvement did we observe convincing effects of antibiotics, which were given mostly in combination with glucocorticosteroids.

Efficacy and safety of pharmacological treatments for acute Lyme neuroborreliosis – a systematic review

“…Sixteen publications met our inclusion criteria ( Fig. 1) [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]; 17 single-arm studies were considered for descriptive analysis (Appendix S2 and Table S1). Eighty-six articles were excluded (reasons are listed in Fig.…”

Cerebrospinal fluid CXCL13 as a diagnostic marker of neuroborreliosis in children: a retrospective case-control study

“…The most common neurological manifestations of LNB in European children are acute facial nerve palsy (55–61%), other cranial nerve palsies, and lymphocytic meningitis (27%) [ 4 – 8 ]. Signs and symptoms of early LNB typically last for less than 6 months, and the natural course of the disease is often self-limiting [ 9 ].…”

Nervous System Lyme Borreliosis

“…Adequately treated neuroborreliosis in children seems to have an excellent prognosis (Christen et al, 1993;Thorstrand et al, 2002). The duration of persistent symptoms in patients with neuroborreliosis if antibiotic treatment is not given has been estimated to be three to six months in most cases (Kr€ uger et al, 1990), although in some patients continuing and progressive infection may occur (Bensch et al, 1987). In a long-term follow-up study of adult patients many years after untreated neuroborreliosis, Kr€ uger et al observed that 18% of the patients exhibited "mild to medium sequelae" up to 21 years after acute illness, while 32% had mild clinical sequelae (Kr€ uger et al, 1989).…”