This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on Web of Science (8)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor.—In areas where Lyme disease is endemic, physicians may routinely be confronted with the problem of arthropod identification and tick-bite management. Because Lyme disease can be difficult to diagnose, history of a bite from the vector tick, Ixodes scapularis (Figure 1), may play a role in diagnosing suspected cases.¹ Evidence of a tick bite may result from observations of the patient or the physician. However, the accuracy of identification by persons not trained in entomology is unknown. Consequences of misidentification may lead to misdiagnosis of Lyme disease and unnecessary prophylactic treatment with antibiotics. As part of a tick-bite study in Westchester County, New York,^2-3 a Lyme disease endemic area,⁴ we assessed the accuracy of tick identification by physicians and the public from arthropods submitted for species identification or verification.

Figure appears in full text version. Figure 1.—Clockwise, from left, Dermacentor variabilis female; sesame seed (shown for size comparison, approximately 3 mm . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?