California lab develops test for 'tick-borne relapsing fever'

The series of events that happen inside the human body when someone is bitten by a disease-carrying tick is immensely complex.

Spiral-shaped bacteria from the Borrelia family can lead to a variety of medical conditions including the notoriously difficult-to-diagnose Lyme disease. A recent report in the medical journal Healthcare also described a new form of Lyme, called tick-borne relapsing fever, which has been recognized by the medical community as a neglected disease in North America and Europe.

California laboratory IGenex has developed a new test that can detect a patient’s exposure to tick-borne relapsing fever, and the testing procedure was described in the Healthcare report.

“Our findings demonstrate the complexity of Lyme disease,” said Dr. Jyotsna Shah, the lead author of the study who is president and laboratory director at IGeneX. “The new test shows exposure to another form of the disease that cannot be detected with currently available Lyme testing.”

IGenex’s “line immuno-blot” test detects antibodies produced by the body to combat relapsing fever, in the same way that the company’s previous line-immuno-blot test was able to detect exposure to Borreli burgdorferi Lyme spirochetes.

In the study, the test was used to detect antibodies against relapsing fever Borrelia in well-characterized serum samples from patients in Australia, Ukraine and the United States. The novel test showed high sensitivity for these antibodies, and there were very few false-positive results.

“Line immuno-blot testing offers a reliable method to detect exposure to relapsing fever Borrelia,” said clinician Dr. Мariia Shkilna, who treats Lyme disease in Ukraine. “The test can demonstrate exposure in individual patients and help us understand the global spread of tick-borne relapsing fever.”

San Francisco internist Dr. Raphael Stricker pointed to the implications of the new test for Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment. “Lyme disease is not a simple infection anymore,” he said. “We need to pay attention to new forms of the disease, and the line immuno-blot test is a good start.”

IGenex has applied for a patent related to the development of the test.

“The (test) may offer a one-step serological test that can be applied globally to support the diagnosis and epidemiological studies of (tick-borne relapsing fever),” wrote Shah, Shkilna, Stricker and the other 10 authors of the report.