Lyme disease has only been definitively diagnosed in human medicine in the past 25 years. It is even more recent that disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi infection has been described in dogs. Many clinical manifestations of Lyme disease exist inhumans. Syndromes described include dermal, neurologic, limb-joint, ocular, and cardiac. In dogs, limb-joint disease is well characterized in the literature. Canine cardiac, ocular, and neurologic manifestations are less frequently described. A unique form of glomerulonephritis associated with Borrelia burgdorferi infection ("Lyme Nephritis") has recently been recognized in dogs. This disease is rapidly progressive and fatal and no current successful treatment exists. Lyme nephritis has not been documented in people, to the author's knowledge. Grauer, et. al., first described Lyme-related glomerulonephritis in a case report in 1988. Since that publication, a few additional reports of Lyme nephritis have been reported. In 1997, a retrospective study ofdogs with renal pathology similar to the case described by Grauer was published by Dambach, et. al. Also in 1997, this author in conjunction with Dambach and Littman published an abstract regarding the clinical aspects of Lyme nephritis. The purpose of this discussion is to expand upon the abstract.
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