Oral treatment of late Lyme borreliosis with a combination of roxithromycin and co-trimoxazole--a pilot study on 18 patients.

In this pilot trial, 18 patients participated in an investigation in which the combined therapy of co-trimoxazole and roxithromycin in late Lyme borreliosis was tested. The study has been performed as a result of earlier case reports in "The Lancet" where this combination has been used successfully in order to thwart late Lyme disease. The authors show that 76% of the patients recovered completely. In 2 patients, symptoms could be resolved with i.v. penicillin and 2 did not respond to any antibiotic therapy. These results show that oral therapy of co-trimoxazole and roxithromycin in combination provides similar results as i.v. antibiotics in earlier studies.