KILL KINETICS OF BORRELIA-BURGDORFERI AND BACTERIAL FINDINGS IN RELATION TO THE TREATMENT OF LYME BORRELIOSIS

For a better understanding of the persistence of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.) after antibiotic therapy the kinetics of killing B, burgdorferi s, I, under amoxicillin, doxycycline, cefotaxime, ceftriax one, azithromycin and penicillin G were determined. The killing effect was investigated in MKP medium and human serum during a 72 h exposure to antibiotics, Twenty clinical isolates were used, including ten str ains of Borrelia afzelii and ten strains of Borrelia garinii, The resu lts show that the kinetics of killing borreliae differ from antibiotic to antibiotic, The killing rate of a given antibiotic is less depende nt on the concentration of the antibiotic than on the reaction time, F urthermore, the data show that the strains of B, afzelii and B, garini i have a different reaction to antibiotics used in the treatment of Ly me borreliosis and that different reactions to given antibiotics also exist within one species, The B. garinii strains appear to be more sen sitive to antibiotics used in therapy, Furthermore, the persistence of B, burgdorferi sl. and clinical recurrences in patients despite seemi ngly adequate antibiotic treatment is described, The patients had clin ical disease with or without diagnostic antibody titers to B, burgdorf eri.