Figure 2.

(a) Thirty-eight patients with neuroborreliosis and (b) 47 patients with viral diseases (known pathogen) and neuroinfectious diseases of unknown pathogens received another lumbar puncture after starting antibiotic or antiviral therapy. The CSF-CXCL13 level (red), the leucocyte cell count (green), and QAlb (blue) in (a) neuroborreliosis and (b) viral (known pathogen) and neuroinfectious diseases of unknown pathogens are illustrated before (“untreated”) and after (“treated”) anti-infective treatment. The CXCL13 value (pg/mL; red), leucocyte cell count (/µL; green), and QAlb (CSF/serum albumin ratio ×10⁻⁰³; blue) in CSF before (“untreated”) and after (“treated”) the initiation of therapy are shown as boxplots with medians (horizontal lines), interquartile ranges (bars), whiskers (dotted lines), and outliers (open circles). A line connects the corresponding medians. We used the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to compare CXCL13 in CSF, leucocyte cell counts, and QAlb before and after treatment. p-values <0.05 were considered statistically significant. (a) CSF-CXCL13 (red): p < 0.001; leucocyte count (green): p < 0.001; QAlb (blue): p < 0.001; (b) CSF-CXCL13 (red): p = 0.046; leucocyte count (green): p = 0.044; QAlb (blue): p = 0.033. QAlb: CSF-albumin/serum-albumin (albumin ratio).