[Lyme borreliosis--experience of the last 25 years in Hungary]

Abstract

We recognized the first Hungarian Lyme patients just 25 years ago, in 1984. It was exactly 20 years ago, when we opened the Lyme Disease Outpatient Service at the Central (László) Hospital for Infectious Diseases. 15 years ago we established the financially independent Center for Tick-borne Diseases. The milestones of this work at the Center for Tick-borne Diseases are the description of a new tick-borne rickettsial illness (tick-borne lymphadenopathy), development of a Lyme immunoblot kit and an automated immunoblot reader. We described a simple and reliable method for detection of intrathecal borrelia antibody synthesis which is necessary for the diagnosis of neuroborreliosis. We also developed and routinely apply the comparative immunoblot assay for the evaluation of serological progression and/or regression, which can help the clinicians to decide whether a serological reaction is resulted from a previous healed or an active borrelia infection. We studied the pregnancy outcome of borrelia infected mothers and provided that untreated borrelia infection is associated with higher chance of adverse pregnancy outcome.