Successful cultivation of spirochetes from skin lesions of patients with erythema chronicum migrans Afzelius and acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans.
Spirochetes could be cultivated from 9 out of 13 skin biopsies from patients with erythema chronicum migrans Afzelius (ECMA) and from 2 out of 5 biopsies from patients with acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans (ACA) by using a newly modified serumless Kelly's medium. The different spirochete strains grew best at a low oxygen tension. Attempts to grow spirochetes from blood and cerebrospinal fluid failed. The cultivation of spirochetes from secondary ECMA lesions favours the presumption that a spirochetemia may occur in ECMA. The isolation of spirochetes from an ACA patient who had a disease duration of greater than 10 years proves that the spirochetes may survive in the human body for a considerable time.
D000169:Acrodermatitis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D001096:Arachnid Vectors; D004890:Erythema / Q000209:etiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D013144:Spirochaetales / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D013145:Spirochaetales Infections / Q000209:etiology* / Q000635:transmission; D013987:Ticks