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| |  Long-Term Outcome Good For Lyme Disease Patients Treated With Antibiotics CHICAGO, IL -- February 1, 2000-- When compared with people who have never had Lyme disease, most people who have had Lyme disease and were treated with conventional antibiotic therapy report about the same level of health years after treatment, according to an article in the February 2 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Elyse G. Seltzer, M.D., from the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., and colleagues assessed the long-term outcomes of patients in Connecticut diagnosed with Lyme disease between 1984 and 1991. The authors write: "Reports have appeared in both the lay press and the medical literature of persons who were diagnosed as having Lyme disease and subsequently developed either recurrent or persistent, nonspecific symptoms (such as fatigue or joint pain) attributed to Lyme disease (sometimes even if they were treated with antimicrobial therapies)." But they note that overall, few data exist about the long-term outcomes of patients with Lyme disease. In the study, although many patients reported increases in symptoms and/or increased difficulties with typical daily activities between one and 11 years after diagnosis of Lyme disease, the frequencies of these reports were similar to the frequencies of such reports among age-matched controls without Lyme disease. Of the 678 patients, 64.3 percent met the national surveillance case definition for Lyme disease. Most patients were treated with antimicrobial agents. An increased frequency of symptoms (eg, pain, fatigue) or of difficulty with daily activities (eg, performing housework, exercising) was reported by 69 percent of the patients, although few (19 percent) of these problems were attributed to Lyme disease. Whenever there was a statistically significant difference in the frequencies of either increased symptoms or increased difficulties with typical activities between those who did or did not meet the surveillance case definition, in all instances the greater frequency of problems was in the group that did not meet the case definition. The researchers conclude: "This study does not indicate that all patients with Lyme disease have favorable outcomes. Indeed, there is good evidence that in rare instances they may experience complications-particularly recurrent arthritis in patients who are not treated promptly and who have a genetic predisposition to develop an autoimmune-mediated arthritis. However, the large size of our sample and the generally excellent overall outcomes of the patients should reassure both patients and physicians that the prognosis for most patients with Lyme disease who receive conventional antimicrobial treatment is excellent." (JAMA. 2000;283:609-616) Related Link: The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
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