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Rebecca Voelker

JAMA. 1999;282:1908.

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

Researchers at Yale University School of Medicine have set their sights on next summer's tick season with the development of a new, more reliable assay for the detection of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE).

The bacterium that causes HGE is transmitted by the same ticks responsible for the spread of Lyme disease and babesiosis. The availability of sensitive, specific diagnostic tests is important because patients diagnosed with one tickborne illness are at risk of having additional tick-related infections. Diagnosis of HGE has been difficult because symptoms do not include a rash, as in Lyme disease, and current testing methods using indirect fluorescent-antibody assays and immunoblot analysis are variable and expensive.

The new assay is made from recombinant purified HGE-44 protein, which is believed to be located on the bacterial membrane surface. In tests of serum samples from 38 patients with HGE, the sensitivity of the new assay was 87% . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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