Does chlamydia trachomatis influence manifestations of Lyme Arthritis?

Lyme arthritis, caused by the tick-borne spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, produces typically intermittent episodes of arthritis of the larger joints, usually the knee joints. A number of patients, however, develop arthritis more closely resembling Reiter's syndrome, i.e., heel and ankle involvement. We studied the clinical features of ten patients who developed arthritis after a tick bite and who had shown erythema migrans and related it to the presence of evidence of Chlamydia trachomatis infection. Along with typical signs of Lyme arthritis we observed heel and ankle involvement. Chlamydia trachomatis was found in smears in 4 cases, whereas no patient had antichlamydial antibodies. However, evidence of Chlamydia trachomatis did not correlate with signs considered typical of Reiter's syndrome. Therefore, Lyme arthritis may have some arthritic manifestations resembling Reiter's syndrome, but this seems unrelated to the presence of Chlamydia trachomatis. Moreover, the arthritis is not associated with HLA-B27.

An approach to detecting delayed effects of radioactive contamination on industrial-urban-area dwellers.

Detecting changes in humans that result from radioactive contamination of the area of residence many years after an incident (i.e., when the radiation has substantially decayed) presents a difficult epidemiological problem. Problems of this kind are even more complicated ina areas where the population is continually exposed to other harmful man-made factors. The city of Kamensk-Uralsky (Sverdlovsk region, Russia) is a good case in point. In 1957, part of Kamensk-Uralsky was contaminated as the result of an accident at the Kyshtym nuclear plant. In addition, the population of the contaminated area is being exposed to atmospheric emissions from several industrial enterprises. Two comparable groups of residents were formed: one in the contaminated are and another in a control area within the same city characterized by similar levels of chemical pollution but substantially lower radioactive contamination. The groups were composed of only those people who had been living in these areas continually since time of the accident and who were under 15 years of age at the time of the accident. The groups were matched by sex, age, and socio-occupational characteristics. For each subject, data were gathered on more than 50 parameters including hematological, immunological, and biochemical indices of the health status. All these data were obtained from blood tests taken in the fall of 1992. Data processing was carried out with the help of a computerized mathematical pattern recognition methodology, which ensured reliable discrimination between the generalized health status in the areas under study. We found that the health status of inhabitants of the area more contaminated with radioactive fallouts was adversely affected by radiation.