Lyme Borreliosis IgM Immunoblot Detection

Borrelia burgdorferi infection can cause symptoms of skin, nervous system, eye, and internal organ damage.

The clinical expression of borreliosis is divided into three stages:

Stage I: A few days or weeks after a tick bite, primary borreliosis infection manifests as migratory erythema (skin redness spreading in a ring) and/or flu-like symptoms: fever, chills, headaches, and vomiting. Borreliosis can also occur without erythematous rash. Infection often presents with neurological symptoms, muscle and joint pain, cardiovascular disorders, regional lymph node enlargement, or a combination of all these forms of the disease. Serological methods detect IgM antibodies in 50-90% of patients with stage I of the disease. A negative IgM result does not rule out a new infection, as upon re-infection, only IgG class antibodies may form, and IgM antibodies may not. The cause of false-positive IgM results often remains unclear: they are frequently detected in cases of mononucleosis, herpes virus infections, or various autoimmune diseases. Since the Anti-Borrelia EUROLINE-WB uses a combination of antigen extract (B.afzelii) and recombinant VisE (an early marker common to all species), this kit can identify atypical reactions and detect Borrelia-specific antibodies with high sensitivity. When diagnosing, it is always necessary to consider not only the serological results but also the patient's condition.

Stage II: Various symptoms develop within weeks or months after a tick bite. The most important of these are neurological disorders: meningitis, asymmetric polyneuritis, cranial nerve palsy, etc. Peripheral facial nerve paralysis is most common in children. Arthritis (usually of the knee joints) and non-localized bone, joint, and muscle pain are common. In the early phase of this stage, IgM antibodies are usually detected, and in the later phase - often only IgG antibodies. Determining the immunoblot Anti-Borrelia EUROLINE-WB increases the diagnosis of the disease by 30%. Of all the antigens used to detect IgG class antibodies, VisE is the most sensitive.

Stage III: Without treatment, stage III develops long (years, decades) after the onset of infection. This stage is characterized by chronic relapsing erosive arthritis, atrophic acrodermatitis (acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans), and progressive encephalomyelitis, which mimics multiple sclerosis. In stage III, IgG class antibodies are detected in 90-100% of patients' blood serum, and IgM class antibodies are found very rarely.

According to recommended standards, serological diagnosis of borreliosis should be conducted in two stages: the first stage involves ELISA tests, and POSITIVE results should be confirmed by immunoblot testing. When determining Borrelia-caused infections, of all the recombinant antigens tested, VisE is the most sensitive.