Clinical manifestations and diagnosis of lyme borreliosis.

Lyme borrelosis is a multi-systemic disease caused byBorrelia burgdorferisensu lato. A complete presentation of the disease is an extremely unusual oberservation, in which a skin lesion follows a tick bite, the lesion itself is followed by heart and nervous system involvement, and later on by arthritis; late involvement of the eye, nervous system, joints and skin may also occur. Information on the relative frequency of individual clinical manifestations of Lyme borreliosis is limited; however, the skin is most frequently involved and skin manifestations frequently represent clues for the diagnosis. The only sign that enables a reliable clinical diagnoisis of Lyme borreliosis is a typical erythema migrans. Laboratory confirmation of a borrelial infection is needed for all manifestations of Lyme borreliosis, with the exception of typical skin lesions. Copyright 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel.