This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing theresources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject andinvestigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source,and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed isfor the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator.Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness (STARI), also known as Masters disease, predominantly affects people in the Southeast and South Central United States. These patients exibit skin lesions that resemble erythema-migrans (EM) the characteristic skin lesion in early Lyme disease. The etiology of STARI remains unknown and no serologic test is available to aid in its diagnosis.The C6 Lyme ELISA was used to evaluate coded serum specimens from patients with STARI at 2 laboratory sites. The specimens tested at one site consisted of acute and convalescent samples that were obtained from 9 STARI patients from Missouri, and from one patient with documented B. lonestari infection who acquired this infection in either North Carolina or Maryland. All of these samples were C6 negative. Seventy acute or convalescent specimens from 63 STARI patients from Missouri were C6-tested at the second site. All but one of these STARI specimens were also negative. In contrast, of 9 acute and 9 convalescent serum specimens obtained from culture-confirmed Lyme disease patients with EM from New York State, 7 were C6-positive at the acute stage, and 8 were positive at convalescence. The C6 test is negative in patients with STARI, providing further evidence that B. burgdorferi is not the etiologic agent of this disease.
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