Life

New test for Lyme disease could spot it in 15 minutes

A tick on human skin – the arachnids can carry and spread Lyme disease
A tick on human skin – the arachnids can carry and spread Lyme disease A tick on human skin – the arachnids can carry and spread Lyme disease

WHEN it comes to Lyme disease – the potentially deadly infection spread by?ticks – the medical community is in complete agreement that the sooner treatment starts, the better.

That’s because, without prompt administration of antibiotics, there is a greater chance that the bacteria introduced by the tick bite will spread around the body and cause permanent – even fatal – damage to the heart or brain.

But there’s a problem with that, because the symptoms typically don’t develop until between two and 30 days after a patient has been bitten. They usually start with a bullseye-shaped rash, which signals that the bacteria from the tick are spreading around the site of the bite. However, some people don’t develop this rash.

Furthermore, current blood tests to detect the bacteria that cause the condition can take several days to process.

But now comes new hope, with a? blood test that gives results in just 15 minutes.

The test, which could be given in a GP’s surgery, could speed up diagnosis and improve patients’ chances of making a full recovery – as antibiotics can eradicate the infection if given soon enough.

Official figures show that there are around 2,000 to 3,000 cases of? Lyme disease in the UK each year, although recent research, published in the journal BMJ Open, suggested the real figure is? closer to 8,000, as GPs – often unsure whether or not a patient has Lyme disease – are failing to record it in their notes.

Public Health England says that cases have trebled since 2011, and there is some speculation that this? is due to milder winters and damper summers – the perfect breeding conditions for ticks.

These tiny, spider-like bugs feed off sheep, foxes, deer, hedgehogs and birds and carry a bacterium called Borrelia – the cause of Lyme disease. The bacteria then pass through the bloodstream, attacking the joints and nervous system, before spreading to the brain or the heart.

Without antibiotics, in the first few days the bacteria can trigger a? powerful attack by the immune system, which leads to harmful inflammation that can damage the? heart’s rhythm.

In a small number of cases, the infection leads to irreversible brain damage. Victims lose control over their bodies and become dependent on 24-hour care.

Currently, doctors check for Lyme disease with two blood tests, called Elisa and Western blot. Both look for antibodies – infection-fighting cells pumped out by the immune system – to the Lyme disease bacteria, but neither is accurate enough to give a definitive diagnosis on its own.

Using two tests increases the chances of getting the diagnosis right, but slows down the process, because they can take at least 48 hours to complete and results must be analysed by highly skilled laboratory technicians. The new, 15-minute check, being developed at Columbia University in New York, harnesses a technology called microfluidics, where a tiny microchip is used to analyse minute quantities of blood in a matter of minutes.

Once a drop of blood has been taken, it is fed into a mobile-phone-sized device.

As the blood flows through tiny channels inside the gadget, the chip is able to detect the presence of antibodies that confirm Lyme disease is present.

This is faster than current tests because it needs only a fraction of the blood presently required for a diagnosis, so the blood reacts much more quickly to chemicals designed to show if antibodies are present.

The results of a recent trial, published in the Journal Of Clinical Microbiology, on 142 patients who were either healthy or had Lyme disease, showed that the new, unnamed test was at least as accurate as the current two-test method – and significantly faster.

Larger trials are now being planned and, if they are successful, the high-speed test could be available within the next two to three years.

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