Table 3.
Clinical appearance of EM patients with or without exposition to other tick-borne agents
| EM with possible co-infection (n = 16) | EM without co-infection (n = 119) | p-value | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statistics | n | Statistics | N | ||
| Female, n (%) | 8 (50%) | 16 | 73 (61%) | 118 | 0.36e |
| Age, mean (SD) | 53.6 (20.7) | 16 | 54.7 (15.3) | 119 | 0.79f |
| Days from tick-bite to EM, median (IQR) | 21 (8–25) | 11 | 11 (5–21) | 74 | 0.21g |
| Days from EM to treatment, median (IQR) | 5 (2–20) | 15 | 7 (2–16) | 103 | 0.87g |
| Diagnostic accuracy “very sure”a, n (%) | 12 (75%) | 16 | 81 (68%) | 119 | 0.78h |
| EM duration, median (IQR) | 14 (8–28) | 16 | 14 (9–21) | 119 | 0.66g |
| Concomitant symptomsb, median (IQR) | 2 (0–3) | 16 | 1 (0–2) | 119 | 0.50g |
| Fever, n (%) | 1 (6.3%) | 16 | 4 (3.4%) | 117 | 0.48h |
| EM colorc, mean (SD) | 3.6 (0.89) | 16 | 3.27 (0.89) | 119 | 0.13f |
| EM diameter (cm), median (IQR) | 10 (6–11) | 16 | 10 (7–14) | 116 | 0.69g |
| EM appearance “Bulls eye”, n (%) | 11 (69%) | 16 | 59 (50%) | 117 | 0.16e |
| Bbsl biopsy pos., n (%) | 12 (86%) | 14 | 58 (66%) | 88 | 0.22h |
| Antibiotic treatmentd, n (%) |
A: 2 (13%) B: 5 (31%) C: 9 (56%) |
16 |
A: 38 (32%) B: 41 (34%) C: 40 (34%) |
119 | N/A |
IQR interquartile range, SD standard deviation
aDiagnostic accuracy scored by including GP, “not sure”, “sure” or “very sure”
bNumber of the 16 symptoms registered: Tiredness, headache, arthralgia, neck stiffness, fever, palpitations, myalgia, sore throat, tender skin, dizziness, nausea, chest pain, diarrhea, chills, hot flushes, coughing
cColour of the EM at the day of inclusion, grade 1–5 (light red—dark red).
dA = phenoxymethylpenicillin, B = Amoxicillin. C = Doxycycline. Treatments were randomized in the trial [19].
eX2-test
ft-test
gMann–Whitney U test
hFisher’s Exact Test