Evolving Objectives in the Treatment of Lyme Disease
As often happens in medicine, scientific evidence evolves; the continual flux of new patients with symptoms suggestive of Lyme disease is growing and new research has proven that Lyme disease is more complex and prevalent than we thought. The time has come to move beyond the divisiveness of the past, listen to the suffering of our patients and their families and move forward with all sides of the discussion into an evidenced-based paradigm for research, education, and patient care. The question is no longer whether Lyme is a complicated disease, or whether the current testing is adequate or whether the Lyme bacteria can survive a single antibiotic challenge in order to become a persistent infection. High quality studies show not only that it happens, but they also show how it happens, and why we should not be surprised that it happens. Our objective now is to determine which patients suffer from acute and or persistent LD, and to keep pressing for evidence-based wisdom to guide physicians and allied health care providers called upon to treat them.
