期刊名称：Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine
印刷版ISSN：1232-1966
电子版ISSN：1898-2263
出版年度：2015
卷号：22
期号：2
页码：247-250
DOI：10.5604/12321966.1152074
出版社：Institute of Agricultural Medicine in Lublin
摘要：Lyme borreliosis (LB) is a multi-systemic tick-borne disease affecting both humans and animals, including horses, and iscaused by a group of interrelated spirochetes classified within the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.) complex. Despite thehigh reported seroprevalence in the European equine population for B. burgdorferi s.l., to-date no documented clinical caseshave been described. A 6-year-old Paint gelding was referred with a history of three weeks of fever, intermittent lamenessand digital flexor tendon sheath effusion of the right hind limb. Based on a strict diagnostic protocol, which includedserological tests for infectious diseases and molecular investigations, a final diagnosis was made of polysynovitis due toB. burgdorferi s.l. infection. An unreported aspect observed in this case was the absence of the pathogen DNA in two ofthe affected joints. To the authors’ knowledge, the case described represents the first documented clinical case of equineLB in Italy. Moreover, the absence of pathogen DNA in two of the affected joints observed in this case revealed a possiblesimilarity with the same condition described in humans, where an immunomediated pathogenesis for arthropathy due toB. burgdorferi s.l. infection is suspected. Since humans and horses share the same habitat, this report supports the role ofthe horse as potential sentinel for human biological risk
关键词：Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato; Borrelia afzelii; polysynovitis; equine
