All Posts Tagged With: "culture"

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March 15, 2010 (New Orleans, Louisiana) — Almost half of children with fluid in the knee in the Northeastern United States are likely to have Lyme arthritis, according to a new study presented here at the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons 2010 Annual Meeting.

“In a pediatric population, Lyme arthritis is probably the first diagnosis to consider if you are in an endemic area,” Matthew D. Milewski, MD, from Yale–New Haven Children’s Hospital in Connecticut, told meeting attendees.

Connecticut has the highest rate of Lyme disease, but other areas of the United States are considered endemic, including the northeast from Maine to the mid-Atlantic states, Minnesota, Wisconsin and other Midwestern states, and Northern California.

Lyme arthritis is on the rise, increasing almost 100% in the past 15 years, according to data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Children are nearly twice as likely to develop arthritis with Lyme disease than adults, and also to have it as the initial manifestation. Distinguishing children who have Lyme arthritis from those who have septic arthritis can be a challenge in the emergency department (ED), but doing so is essential because their treatment is so different, Dr. Milewski said.

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November 13, 2009 (Washington, DC) — The odds that a child living in a Lyme-endemic area of the United States who presents with a joint effusion will be diagnosed as having Lyme arthritis is 29%. The odds are even higher (44%) if the affected joint is the knee. The leukocyte count is useful in distinguishing between septic and Lyme arthritis, researchers announced here.

“There was an increase in the number of cases in the United States by 101% over the past 15 years, possibly due to increased recognition of Lyme disease,” said Aristides I. Cruz Jr., MD, resident in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. During his presentation, he noted that 93% of all Lyme disease cases arise from 10 states, most in the Northeast United States.

Central Role of the Holliday Junction Helicase RuvAB in vlsE Recombination and Infectivity of Borrelia burgdorferi

Lyme disease is the most prevalent tick-borne infection in North America and Eurasia. It is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans via the bite of infected ticks. These spirochetes can cause both acute and chronic infection and inflammation of the skin, joints, heart, and central nervous system. The persistence of infection despite the presence of an active immune response is dependent upon antigenic variation of VlsE, a 35 kDa surface-exposed lipoprotein. A large number of different VlsE variants are present in the host simultaneously and are generated by recombination of the vlsE gene with adjacent vls silent cassettes. To try to identify factors important in vlsE recombination and immune evasion, we selected mutants in genes involved in DNA recombination and repair and screened them for infectivity and vlsE recombination. Mutants in genes encoding RuvA and RuvB (which act together to promote the exchange of strands between two different DNA molecules) had reduced infectivity and greatly diminished vlsE recombination. In immunodeficient mice, ruvA mutants retained full infectivity, and no vlsE recombination was detected. Our findings reinforce the importance of vlsE variation in immune evasion and persistent infection. Continued

November 13, 2009 (Washington, DC) – The odds that a child living in a Lyme-endemic area of the United States who presents with a joint effusion will be diagnosed as having Lyme arthritis is 29%. The odds are even higher (44%) if the affected joint is the knee. The leukocyte count is useful in distinguishing between septic and Lyme arthritis, researchers announced here.

“There was an increase in the number of cases in the United States by 101% over the past 15 years, possibly due to increased recognition of Lyme disease,” said Aristides I. Cruz Jr., MD, resident in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. During his presentation, he noted that 93% of all Lyme disease cases arise from 10 states, most in the Northeast United States. Continued