Does Biological Sex Matter in Lyme Disease? The Need for Sex-Disaggregated Data in Persistent Illness

Lorraine Johnson; Mira Shapiro; Sylvia Janicki; Jennifer Mankoff; Raphael B Stricker

doi:10.2147/IJGM.S406466

Does Biological Sex Matter in Lyme Disease? The Need for Sex-Disaggregated Data in Persistent Illness

Int J Gen Med. 2023 Jun 17:16:2557-2571. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S406466. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Lorraine Johnson¹, Mira Shapiro², Sylvia Janicki³, Jennifer Mankoff⁴, Raphael B Stricker⁵

Affiliations

¹ MyLymeData, San Ramon, CA, USA.
² Analytic Designers LLC, Bethesda, MD, USA.
³ School of Literature, Media and Communications, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁴ Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁵ Union Square Medical Associates, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Abstract

Background: Biological sex should be included as an important variable in clinical research studies to identify outcome differences between men and women. Very few Lyme disease studies were designed to consider sex-based differences or gender bias as an important component of the research design.

Methods: To assess sex-based differences in Lyme disease patients who were clinically diagnosed and reported remaining ill for six or more months after receiving antibiotic treatment, we analyzed self-reported clinical data from 2170 patients in the MyLymeData patient registry. We also reviewed previous Lyme disease studies for distribution of patients by biological sex according to stage of illness, data source, and definition of disease used as enrollment criteria.

Results: In MyLymeData, women reported more tick-borne coinfections, worse symptoms, longer diagnostic delays, more misdiagnoses, and worse functional impairment than men. No differences were reported in antibiotic treatment response or side effects. In our review, of clinical research trials and data sources, we identified a smaller percentage of women in studies of acute Lyme disease and a larger percentage of women in studies of persistent illness. Samples and data sources that were more reflective of patients seen in clinical practice had a higher percentage of women than randomized controlled trials and post-treatment Lyme disease studies.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that biological sex should be integrated into Lyme disease research as a distinct variable. Future Lyme disease studies should include sex-based disaggregated data to illuminate differences that may exist between men and women with persistent illness.

Keywords: Borrelia burgdorferi; MyLymeData; chronic lyme disease; gender bias; post-treatment lyme disease; sex-based differences; tick-borne disease.

Grants and funding

Funding for this work was provided in part by grants from the Bill and Marion Cook Foundation, the Bruce Lindorf Memorial Foundation and the Peterson Family Foundation, Orem, UT. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.