Lyme disease: modern approaches to treatment and prevention (based on international recommendations of 2020)

Abstract

Lyme disease (LD) or tick-borne borreliosis affects thousands of people every year in different regions of the world, primarily in the United States and Europe. Given the great social and medical importance of this problem, an updated version of the clinical guidelines for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of PD was published in November 2020 by a committee of experts of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). This article discusses the main issues of the use of antibacterial drugs in LD. The most commonly used medications are doxycycline, amoxicillin, cefuroxime axetil, and ceftriaxone. Patients with erythema migrans receive appropriate antibiotics for 7–14 days, depending on the medication used. In case of other clinical manifestations of LD, the duration of treatment is extended to 14–28 days. Antibiotic prophylaxis is carried out using a single oral dose of 200 mg doxycycline for adults and 4.4 mg/kg (with a maximum of 200 mg) for children. This treatment scheme is highly efficient, easy to administer, and has a relatively low risk of adverse events.