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| Adam Gault | Getty Images |
Herbert S. Diamond, MD | July 21, 2015
http://reference.medscape.com/features/slideshow/lyme-disease-diagnosis-management-prevention
23 slides
Ticks can carry and transmit a wide array of pathogens that can cause diseases in humans, including bacteria, spirochetes, rickettsiae, protozoa, viruses, nematodes, and toxins.[1] Tick-borne diseases can be found throughout the world[2] and, in recent years, several new ones have emerged (eg, Powassan disease,[3] Borrelia miyamotoi infection,[4] Heartland virus disease,[5]Bourbon virus disease,[6,7] 364D rickettsiosis[8]).
In the
* Discussed in this slideshow.
Images courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/Steven Glenn, Laboratory & Consultation Division (top left); CDC (bottom left); Dreamstime/Svetlana67 (tick on leaf); and Sam Shlomo Spaeth (sidebar).
Efforts to find a treatment for Alzheimer's disease have been disappointing so far. But there's a new generation of drugs in the works that researchers think might help not only Alzheimer's patients, but also people with Parkinson's disease and other brain disorders.
Previous efforts to treat Alzheimer's have focused on a single target — usually the protein called beta-amyloid, says Maria Carrillo, chief science officer of the Alzheimer's Association. "The one-target approach is probably not going to be the answer," Carrillo says.
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Lyme Disease caused by infection with Borrelia burgdorferi is an emerging infectious disease and already by far the most common vector-borne disease in the U.S. Similar to many other infections, infection with B. burgdorferi results in strong antibody response induction, which can be used clinically as a diagnostic measure of prior exposure. However, clinical studies have shown a sometimes-precipitous decline of such antibodies shortly following antibiotic treatment, revealing a potential deficit in the host's ability to induce and/or maintain long-term protective antibodies. This is further supported by reports of frequent repeat infections with B. burgdorferi in endemic areas. The mechanisms underlying such a lack of long-term humoral immunity, however, remain unknown. We show here that B. burgdorferi infected mice show a similar rapid disappearance of Borrelia-specific antibodies after infection and subsequent antibiotic treatment. This failure was associated with development of only short-lived germinal centers, micro-anatomical locations from which long-lived immunity originates. These showed structural abnormalities and failed to induce memory B cells and long-lived plasma cells for months after the infection, rendering the mice susceptible to reinfection with the same strain of B. burgdorferi. The inability to induce long-lived immune responses was not due to the particular nature of the immunogenic antigens of B. burgdorferi, as antibodies to both T-dependent and T-independent Borrelia antigens lacked longevity and B cell memory induction. Furthermore, influenza immunization administered at the time of Borrelia infection also failed to induce robust antibody responses, dramatically reducing the protective antiviral capacity of the humoral response. Collectively, these studies show that B. burgdorferi-infection results in targeted and temporary immunosuppression of the host and bring new insight into the mechanisms underlying the failure to develop long-term immunity to this emerging disease threat.
BOSTON A father of four boys, Michael Vitelli of Marshfield Hills, Mass., lives a high-energy, outdoor and active life when he's not at work. He fishes, he hikes, he golfs, he can even boast a running streak of 642 days in a row.
But last month, on what would have been day 643 of running, a tick brought him to an excruciating halt.
After feeling achey for a few days, Vitelli suddenly got too sick to get out of bed, as if with a summer flu — fever, sweats and chills, headache. Then he got even sicker. His test results looked dire: protein and bile in his urine; liver function gone haywire; platelets, red and white blood cells down so low that his chart looked like he had leukemia, a doctor told him.
The diagnosis, after three days in the hospital: anaplasmosis, an infection borne by the same deer ticks that carry Lyme disease. It's up dramatically in Massachusetts: About 600 confirmed and probable cases statewide last year, compared to closer to just 100 in 2010.
Never heard of it? Neither had Vitelli. Naturally, he'd heard of Lyme, which has spread across much of the country in recent decades and now infects an estimated 300,000 Americans a year at least, mainly in New England and the Midwest.
But like most people, he didn't know that ticks can carry a whole array of nasty bugs — with obscure names like babesiosis and Borrelia miyamotoi — and that, though much less common, they, too, are on the rise, following more slowly behind the inexorable march of Lyme disease.
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| | Dear Parkinson's community, One important milestone for a historic piece of legislation has been reached. This morning the U.S. House of Representatives passed the 21st Century Cures Act (H.R. 6) by a resounding vote of 344 to 77.  Thank you for your phone calls, emails, and advocacy over the last few months in support of this bipartisan legislation, which will accelerate the discovery and development of new treatments for Parkinson's! The 21st Century Cures Act includes one of PAN's top policy priorities, the Advancing Research for Neurological Diseases Act, which will, among other things, finally provide us with an accurate count of how many Americans live with Parkinson's disease. The 21st Century Cures Act also invests in critical medical research at the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration and encourages patient-focused drug development. Now our attention turns to the Senate, where we'll need a strong show of support. Please take a few minutes to email your Senators about this important cause as well as thank your Representative for voting. Take Action! Thank you again for your advocacy. We look forward to working with you to move this across the finish line in the months ahead! Sincerely,  Ted Thompson Chief Executive Officer  |
Tyagi N, Maheswaran T, Wimalaratna S.
BMJ Case Reports, Online first, 2015 Jun 25.
http://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2014-209080
Summary
A 34-year-old woman presented to the medical admissions unit with progressive ascending weakness of her limbs and areflexia. Diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome was suspected and she was started on intravenous immunoglobulins.
Owing to a poor initial response, further exploratory history revealed travel to the New Forest and a possible tick bite; subsequent investigations confirmed positive serology for antibodies against Borrelia. The patient's weakness improved with intravenous ceftriaxone for neuroborreliosis, a manifestation of Lyme disease.
With inpatient neurorehabilitation, she made good recovery and was able to mobilise with a stick from being completely bed bound 6 weeks after completion of her antibiotics.
http://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2014-209080
Lyme disease cases are on the rise, with diagnoses occurring in areas that were historically Lyme-free. Scientists attribute the spread to the fact that populations of blacklegged ticks, which carry the bacteria that causes the disease, now flourish in areas once thought to be devoid of ticks.
In a new study, biologists from the University of Pennsylvania, together with colleagues from the New York Department of Health and State University of New York at Albany, used genetic and phylogeographic analyses to determine the origin and recent migratory history of newly discovered tick populations in the Northeastern United States. Their findings indicate that the ticks moved into new areas from established populations, mainly through short-distance, local moves. The results shed light on patterns of disease spread and could have implications for strategies to control ticks in order to reduce disease.
Read the full story:
The Rhode Island Blood Center will lay off 60 people by this fall. That's to help cover the cost of screening for a tick-borne disease that's on the rise in Rhode Island: babesiosis.
