Repeated doxycycline treatment among patients with neuroborreliosis: a nationwide, population-based, registry-based, matched cohort study

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Objectives: To investigate receipt of antibiotics among patients with neuroborreliosis after initial antibiotic treatment, likely attributable to posttreatment symptoms. Methods: We performed a nationwide, matched, population-based cohort study in Denmark (2009-2021). We included all Danish patients with neuroborreliosis, i.e. a positive Borrelia burgdorferi intrathecal antibody index test and a cerebrospinal fluid leukocyte count ≥10 × 106/l, and initially treated with doxycycline. To form a comparison cohort, we randomly extracted individuals from the general population matched 1:10 to patients with neuroborreliosis on date of birth and sex. The main outcome was receipt of doxycycline, and the secondary outcome was receipt of phenoxymethylpenicillin. We calculated short-term (<1 year) and long-term (≥1 year) hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). Results: We included 463 patients with neuroborreliosis and 2,315 comparison cohort members. Compared with the comparison cohort members, patients with neuroborreliosis initially treated with doxycycline had increased receipt of additional doxycycline within 1 year (HR: 38.6, 95%CI: 17.5–85.0) and ≥1 years (HR: 3.5, 95%CI: 1.9–6.3). Compared with comparison cohort members, patients with neuroborreliosis had no increased receipt of phenoxymethylpenicillin (<1 year HR 1.0, 95%CI: 0.7–1.3; ≥1 years HR 1.2, 95%CI: 0.9–1.5). Conclusions: After initial antibiotic treatment, patients with neuroborreliosis have increased receipt of doxycycline particularly within one year after initial antibiotic therapy but also subsequently. The lack of increased receipt of phenoxymethylpenicillin suggests that the receipt of doxycycline was not merely due to differences in healthcare-seeking behaviour, increased risk of early Lyme borreliosis due to exposure, or differences in antibacterial usage in general.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftInfectious Diseases
ISSN2374-4235
DOI
StatusE-pub ahead of print - 2024

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
MMT has received travel grants outside this work from GlaxoSmithKline Pharma A/S. RBD has advisory board activity with Pfizer. AML reports speakers\u2019 honorarium/travel grants/advisory board activity and unrestricted grant from Gilead, speakers honorarium/travel grants from GSK, speaker\u2019s honorarium/advisory board activity from Pfizer outside this work. AML was supported by a grant from the Lundbeck foundation. None of the authors report any conflict of interests in connection with this article.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

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