Persistent Lyme Empiric Antibiotic Study Europe

Summary

The purpose of the study is to establish whether prolonged antibiotic treatment of patients diagnosed with proven or presumed PLD (as endorsed by the international ILADS guidelines) leads to better patient outcome than short-term treatment as endorsed by the Dutch CBO guidelines.

Timeline

Start

2010-09

Primary completion

2013-10

Completion

2014-10

Publications

• Background Berende A, ter Hofstede HJ, Donders AR, van Middendorp H, Kessels RP, Adang EM, Vos FJ, Evers AW, Kullberg BJ. Persistent Lyme Empiric Antibiotic Study Europe (PLEASE)--design of a randomized controlled trial of prolonged antibiotic treatment in patients with persistent symptoms attributed to Lyme borreliosis. BMC Infect Dis. 2014 Oct 16;14:543. doi: 10.1186/s12879-014-0543-y.
• Results Berende A, ter Hofstede HJ, Vos FJ, van Middendorp H, Vogelaar ML, Tromp M, van den Hoogen FH, Donders AR, Evers AW, Kullberg BJ. Randomized Trial of Longer-Term Therapy for Symptoms Attributed to Lyme Disease. N Engl J Med. 2016 Mar 31;374(13):1209-20. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1505425.
• van Middendorp H, Berende A, Vos FJ, Ter Hofstede HHM, Kullberg BJ, Evers AWM. Expectancies as predictors of symptom improvement after antimicrobial therapy for persistent symptoms attributed to Lyme disease. Clin Rheumatol. 2021 Oct;40(10):4295-4308. doi: 10.1007/s10067-021-05760-1. Epub 2021 May 24.
• Berende A, Agelink van Rentergem J, Evers AWM, Ter Hofstede HJM, Vos FJ, Kullberg BJ, Kessels RPC. Cognitive impairments in patients with persistent symptoms attributed to Lyme disease. BMC Infect Dis. 2019 Oct 7;19(1):833. doi: 10.1186/s12879-019-4452-y.
• Berende A, Ter Hofstede HJM, Vos FJ, Vogelaar ML, van Middendorp H, Evers AWM, Kessels RPC, Kullberg BJ. Effect of prolonged antibiotic treatment on cognition in patients with Lyme borreliosis. Neurology. 2019 Mar 26;92(13):e1447-e1455. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000007186. Epub 2019 Feb 22.

Drugs

Indications