Following up on this thread, Lyme disease is notoriously hard to detect, so this report in NewScientist (26 August 2017) is welcome news:
John Belisle at Colorado State University and his colleagues wondered whether [Lyme disease and southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI)] could be distinguished by measuring the changes each causes to the abundance of specific metabolites in the blood.
They screened 220 blood samples from people diagnosed with Lyme disease or STARI and compared them with healthy samples. An algorithm was trained to detect the differences revealed (Science Translational Medicine, doi.org/cbxx).When tested on new samples, the algorithm diagnosed Lyme disease and STARI with an accuracy of 85 and 92 per cent, respectively.
I wonder how they correct for the high inaccuracy rate in the tests they presumably use to diagnose Lyme disease. Probably explained in the actual study, but I’m a little too tired to read that today.
