COMPARISON OF URINARY-BLADDER AND EAR BIOPSY SAMPLES FOR DETERMINING PREVALENCE OF BORRELIA-BURGDORFERI IN RODENTS IN CENTRAL-EUROPE

PCR was used to compare urinary bladder and ear biopsy samples from fo ur European species of wild rodents for the presence of Borrelia burgd orferi sensu late. From 60 paired comparisons of bladder and ear biops y samples, the PCR results were concordantly positive or negative in 4 3 samples (71.7%). Of the 17 which differed, 14 bladder samples were p ositive and ear samples were negative while the converse occurred for three samples. Thus ear biopsy samples led to a significantly lower es timate of infection than bladder biopsy samples. This suggests that th e use of ear biopsy samples in epidemiological studies of B. burgdorfe ri in Central European rodents is likely to lead to underestimates of the prevalence.