Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore has launched its Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center in Lutherville, Md., which will act as a hub for catalyzing the exploration of Lyme disease. The center was inaugurated on May 12 with a major gift from the Lyme Disease Research Foundation.
Here are five things to know about Lyme disease and the new Johns Hopkins center.
1. Discovered in Lyme, Conn., roughly 40 years ago, the disease afflicts more than 300,000 people in the U.S. every year, making it the sixth most common reportable infectious disease in the country.
2. Most people infected with Lyme disease respond well to antibiotic treatment, but about one in every five or six patients develops a debilitating condition called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, which is marked by extreme fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, arthritis-like pain in the joints and cognitive, neurological and cardiac symptoms.
3. The Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center is the first center in the country at a major U.S. medical research center dedicated to researching the causes and cures of post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome.
4. The center's founder and director, John Aucott, MD, received a grant to lead the first prospective controlled study in the U.S. to examine the impact of Lyme disease on patients' immune systems and their long-term health.
5. The Study of Lyme Disease Immunology and Clinical Events, also known as SLICE, aims to understand why some patients develop post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome lasting months or years, while others do not.
More articles on Lyme disease:
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Study: Cost and severity of Lyme disease vastly underestimated
New York State Legislature Reviews Long-Term Lyme Disease Treatment Legislation