Smart Maryland Doctors Know Better
Due to the number of Lyme disease patients they were seeing and the devastating affects untreated or under-treated Lyme were having on their patients, many Maryland doctors on the eastern shore began "treating the bite" two decades ago. They also ignored the extremely flawed tests- and in many cases didn't even bother using them.
The good news is- in the study below all 78 patients that were treated with a full course of antibiotics for a "tick bite" and they did NOT develop Lyme disease.
Of course, the authors are complaining because doctors aren't using the tests some are profitting greatly from, or being fooled by the cost-saving, recommended "wait and see" method, or the false "one dose of doxy cures Lyme disease" theory, but what the hay?
Those treated with the full course of antibiotics for a tick bite, every single one of them, didn't develop Lyme disease! That is what we want to happen!
JAMA. 1998 Jan 21;279(3):206-10.
Tick bites and Lyme disease in an endemic setting: problematic use of serologic testing and prophylactic antibiotic therapy.
Fix AD, Strickland GT, Grant J.
Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore 21201, USA. afix@epin.ab.umd.edu
Abstract
CONTEXT: The use of serologic testing to diagnose Lyme disease (LD) is a source of controversy.
Expert recommendations also discourage the routine use of antibiotic therapy for prophylaxis of LD following tick bites, but the extent to which physicians in endemic areas have adopted these recommendations is not known.
OBJECTIVE: To assess the pattern of use of serologic testing and antibiotic therapy for tick bites and LD and associated charges for management in an endemic area.
DESIGN: Active surveillance of patient-physician encounters for tick bites and LD.
SETTING: Primary care practices on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
PATIENTS: Consecutive sample of 232 patients with tick bites, LD (defined by physician diagnosis in medical record), and suspected LD (physician notation of possible, but not definite LD) seen in 1995.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Serologic testing for LD, test results, antibiotic therapy, and direct costs of management.
RESULTS: Surveillance identified 142 patients (61.2%) with diagnoses of tick bites, 40 patients (17.2%) with LD, and 50 patients (21.6%) with suspected LD.
Of the 142 patients seen for tick bites, 95 (67%) underwent serologic testing for LD.
Of these, 93 patients had initial negative or equivocal results; 24 (26%) of the 93 had convalescent testing, with 1 seroconversion.
Seventy-eight patients (55%) with a diagnosis of tick bite received antibiotic therapy. No patients with tick bite developed clinical LD.
Serologic testing for LD was performed for 36 patients (90%) with a diagnosis of LD and 46 patients (92%) with suspected LD.
In most cases, antibiotics were prescribed before serologic test results became available.
Convalescent testing was not performed for 37 (86%) of the 43 patients with suspected LD who had initial negative or equivocal results.
Of these 37 patients, 25 (68%) did not receive antibiotic therapy.
Direct charges for treatment of these 232 patients totaled $47 595, one third of which was attributable to serologic testing.
A total of 32% of direct charges were for patients with tick bites, 48% were for patients with LD, and 20% were for patients with suspected LD.
CONCLUSIONS: In this setting, most patients consulting physicians for tick bites received prophylactic antibiotic therapy of unproven efficacy and underwent unnecessary, costly serologic testing. [BUT IT SPARED THEM FROM GETTING LYME DISEASE!]
Despite almost universal use in this study, serologic testing for LD did not appear to influence treatment of patients diagnosed as having LD.
PMID: 9438740 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Free Article