Isolation of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato from blood of adult patients with borrelial lymphocytoma, Lyme neuroborreliosis, Lyme arthritis and acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans.

BACKGROUND: Reports on patients with European Lyme borreliosis in whom borreliae were isolated from the blood are rare and nearly exclusively limited to those with solitary or multiple erythema migrans. Here we report on patients with other manifestations of Lyme borreliosis in whom borreliae were isolated from their blood.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective review of the medical files of patients diagnosed with borrelial lymphocytoma, Lyme neuroborreliosis, Lyme arthritis and acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans at the Department of Infectious Diseases of the UMC Ljubljana, Slovenia, for whom a borrelia blood culture was ordered. The clinical features of patients whose blood culture tested positive for Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato were reviewed, and the association between the proportion of patients with a positive blood culture and various clinical manifestations was examined.

RESULTS: Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato was isolated from the blood of 1/53 (1.9%) patients with borrelial lymphocytoma, 6/176 (3.4%) patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis, 1/13 (7.7%) patients with Lyme arthritis, and 3/200 (1.5%) patients with acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans. The time interval from the onset of symptoms attributed to Lyme borreliosis and the blood culture ranged from 1 day to >2 years (median 3.5 weeks). At the time of the blood culture, erythema migrans was present in 4/11 (36.4%) borrelia blood culture-positive patients, i.e. in the patient with borrelial lymphocytoma, the patient with Lyme arthritis and the 2/6 patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis. Only two of these 11 (18.2%) patients had fever at the time of the blood culture.

CONCLUSIONS: In European patients with Lyme borreliosis, borreliae can be cultured from the blood not only early in the course of the disease but also occasionally later during disease progression.