Practical aspects of Lyme disease in children

Abstract

Lyme disease is especially important in the spring–autumn period, despite the fact that its clinical manifestations may be throughout the year. Awareness of general practitioners with this problem is insufficient, it requires additional knowledge about diagnosis and treatment. In pediatric practice, the fact of a child being bitten by an Ixodes mite that carries the causative agent of Lyme borreliosis, in addition to babesiosis, anaplasmosis, often goes unnoticed. Therefore, parents seek medical help only when various problems arise, often the thought of Lyme disease does not even arise. Lyme disease has a wide polymorphism of clinical symptoms, is characterized by multisystem lesions, cyclical course — all this complicates the diagnostic search. The difficulty also lies in the fact that there are no domestic clinical recommendations. This publication presents approaches to the diagnosis, treatment, prevention of Lyme disease based on the experience of experts from different countries. Modern approaches to two-stage laboratory diagnostics, tactics of patient management from the moment of bite, treatment at different stages of Lyme borreliosis are analyzed. Attention is paid to the need for epidemiological research in Ukraine and the beginning of educational programs to prevent the disease. The differentiated approach to the treatment of Lyme disease in children due to age aspects, concomitant pathology, safety of long_term antibacterial therapy should be studied more.