Antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi and Bartonella species in serum and synovial fluid from people with rheumatic diseases.
Lisa KimErin LashnitsEdward B BreitschwerdtAmanda ElamNeenah GradeJennifer MillerAlexander R ShikhmanPublished in: Microbiology spectrum (2024)
spp., are more commonly found in synovial fluid than serum of patients with joint effusion. Since Lyme arthritis is a common-and sometimes difficult to diagnose-rheumatic disease, improving diagnostic capabilities is of utmost importance. While our findings are certainly not definitive for changes to practice, they do suggest that synovial fluid could be a useful sample for the clinical diagnosis of Lyme disease, and future prospective studies evaluating this claim are warranted.