borrelia culture available

[Guest guest]

> Whoa, really? Where? Who are they? I'd definitely be interested in

> looking into this. If you could culture the organisms and see how

they

> respond to various abx, that would put us light years ahead when it

> comes to treatment.

The sensitivity testing (they dont offer it but you could try

requesting it) may be worthwhile. Because there is some variation

between strains in natural sensitivity (I forget just how much).

However, I have three papers in which Bb was isolated from the EM

rash site both before and after treatment of EM, and MICs were done

for both the before-treatment isolate and the after-treatment

isolate. In 2 of the papers, there were no changes in the MICs of the

drugs the organsisms had been exposed to during the therapies. In the

third paper the resistance gained was incremental - I think 4-fold at

most (seen mostly with drugs with very low MICs as I recall), and

maybe(?) no change for some of the other patients in that study. I

conclude that those organisms' surviving the therapy is not due to

acquired resistance. It is due to some phenomena which have not been

demonstrated outside the host enviroment.

THese studies were of fairly short-term therapy and after something

like 12 months of tx, perhaps Bb might gain more significant acquired

resistance to the treatment drug(s) in specific, tho I dont

personally know of much reason to think so.

http://www.focustechnologies.com/focus/1-

reference_laboratory/search_frame.asp?f=2

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51120 Borrelia burgdorferi Culture

The isolation of Borrelia burgdorferi in modified Barbour-Stoenner-

medium can be useful in confirming the diagnosis of Lyme Disease

in selected patients. Cultures are held for up to 4 weeks.

Reference Range No Borrelia isolated

Preferred Specimen Heparinized whole blood (10 mL), CSF, joint

fluid. Skin biopsy of lesion periphery in sterile container with

equal volume of sterile saline. " Live " tick in sterile moist gauze.

Transport Temperature Room temperature

Results Available 28 to 35 days

CPT Code 87081 Culture