Figure 6.

Cytokine and chemokine levels in joint fluid of patients with antibiotic-responsive or antibiotic-refractory Lyme arthritis. Joint fluid samples were available from 12 patients with antibiotic-refractory and five patients with antibiotic-responsive arthritis in whom the RST type of the infecting strain could be determined. Of the 17 patients, five were infected with RST1 strains (three with OspC type A and two with type B), seven were infected with RST2 strains (four with OspC type K, two with type H, and one with type N), and five were infected with RST3 strains (two with OspC type G, one with type J, and, in two, only the RST could be determined). Cytokine and chemokine levels were compared according to the RST type of the infecting strain (A) and antibiotic-refractory and antibiotic-responsive arthritis (B). All cytokine and chemokine levels in each of the 17 joint fluid samples were determined by multiplex assays in one complete experiment. The box represents 25^th to 75^th percentiles; lines outside the box, 5^th to 95^th percentiles; and horizontal line in the box, median. For the comparison of RST1 with RST2 or RST3, *P ≤ 0.05. For the comparison of refractory with responsive arthritis, *P ≤ 0.05 and **P ≤ 0.01.