All Posts Tagged With: "infectious disease"

Excerpt:

Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato is the causative agent
of Lyme borreliosis in humans. This inflammatory disease can
affect the skin, the peripheral and central nervous system, the
musculoskeletal and cardiovascular system and rarely the eyes.
Early stages are directly associated with viable bacteria at the
site of inflammation. The pathogen-host interaction is complex
and has been elucidated only in part. B. burgdorferi is highly
susceptible to antibiotic treatment and the majority of patients
profit from this treatment

The use of new, highly sensitive diagnostic methods has revealed persistent
infections to be a common feature of different tick-borne diseases, such as
babesiosis, anaplasmosis and heartwater. Antigenic variation can contribute to
disease persistence through the continual elaboration of new surface structures,
and we know in several instances how this is achieved. Continued

Center for Comparative Medicine, Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine,
University of California at Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616;
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, State University of New
York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794. Continued

Traditional Chinese medicine commands a unique position among all traditional medicines because of its 5000 years of history. Our own interest in natural products from traditional Chinese medicine was triggered in the 1990s, by artemisinin‐type sesquiterpene lactones from Artemisia annua L. As demonstrated in recent years, this class of compounds has activity against malaria, cancer cells, and schistosomiasis. Interestingly, the bioactivity of artemisinin and its semisynthetic derivative artesunate is even broader and includes the inhibition of certain viruses, such as human cytomegalovirus and other members of the Herpesviridae family (e.g., herpes simplex virus type 1 and Epstein‐Barr virus), hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and bovine viral diarrhea virus. Analysis of the complete profile of the pharmacological activities and molecular modes of action of artemisinin and artesunate and their performance in clinical trials will further elucidate the full antimicrobial potential of these versatile pharmacological tools from nature. Continued

Int J Infect Dis. 2009 Nov 17. [Epub ahead of print]

Lakos A, Solymosi N.

The Center for Tick-borne Diseases, Visegrádi 14, Budapest, H-1132, Hungary.

BACKGROUND: There is disagreement regarding whether Lyme borreliosis is associated with adverse pregnancy outcome.

METHODS: We performed a review of the data from 95 women with Lyme borreliosis during pregnancy, evaluated at the Center for Tick-borne Diseases, Budapest over the past 22 years.

RESULTS: Treatment was administered parenterally to 66 (69.5%) women and orally to 19 (20%). Infection remained untreated in 10 (10.5%) pregnancies.

Adverse outcomes were seen in 8/66 (12.1%) parentally treated women, 6/19 (31.6%) orally treated women, and 6/10 (60%) untreated women. In comparison to patients treated with antibiotics, untreated women had a significantly higher risk of adverse pregnancy outcome (odds ratio (OR) 7.61, p=0.004).

While mothers treated orally had an increased chance (OR 3.35) of having an adverse outcome compared to those treated parenterally, this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.052). Erythema migrans did not resolve by the end of the first antibiotic course in 17 patients.

Adverse pregnancy outcome was more frequent among these ’slow responder’ mothers (OR 2.69), but this was not statistically significant (p=0.1425). Loss of the pregnancy (n=7) and cavernous hemangioma (n=4) were the most prevalent adverse outcomes in our series.
The other complications were heterogeneous.

CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that an untreated maternal Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. infection may be associated with an adverse outcome, although bacterial invasion of the fetus cannot be proven.

It appears that a specific syndrome representing ‘congenital Lyme borreliosis’ is unlikely.

PMID: 19926325 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

To delineate the inflammatory potential of the 3 pathogenic species of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, we stimulated monocyte-derived macrophages from healthy human donors with 10 isolates each of B. burgdorferi, Borrelia afzelii, or Borrelia garinii recovered from erythema migrans skin lesions of patients with Lyme borreliosis from the United States or Slovenia. B. burgdorferi isolates from the United States induced macrophages to secrete significantly higher levels of interleukin (IL)-8, CCL3, CCL4, IL-6, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor than B. garinii or B. afzelii isolates. Consistent with this response in cultured macrophages, chemokine and cytokine levels in serum samples of patients from whom the isolates were obtained were significantly greater in B. burgdorferi-infected patients than in B. afzelii- or B. garinii-infected patients. These results demonstrate in vitro and in vivo that B. burgdorferi has greater inflammatory potential than B. afzelii and B. garinii, which may account in part for variations in the clinical manifestations of Lyme borreliosis. Continued