Aggregation of data from 4 clinical studies demonstrating efficacy of single-dose doxycycline postexposure for prevention of the spirochetal infections: Lyme disease, syphilis, and tick-borne relapsing fever

Abstract

Single-dose doxycycline, given within 72 hours of exposure, has been evaluated in 4 clinical studies for postexposure prophylaxis of 3 spirochetal infections: Lyme disease, syphilis, and tick-borne relapsing fever. In this study, data from the 4 studies were aggregated using a meta-analytic random-effects approach, with the DerSimonian-Laird method for variance estimation, analyzing a total of 2468 subjects. The findings of this analysis demonstrated an overall efficacy rate for prevention of the 3 spirochetal infections of 78% (95% confidence interval: 50%-91%).

Keywords: Doxycycline; Lyme disease; Prophylaxis; Spirochetal infections; Syphilis.