MEASLES ANTIBODIES IN PATIENTS WITH VARIOUS TYPES OF MEASLES INFECTION

Antibodies against measles antigens were titrated in the sera of 116 patients by means of complement-fixation and hemagglutination-inhibition tests; in the latter test, whole virions and Tween-ether split virions were used comparatively. The antibody titers were low in the 4 cases of measles encephalitis and in an important proportion of those cases of measles which were accompanied by mild fever. Most of the measles patients with sustained temperature had high antibody titers, as well as the 8 cases of modified measles which occurred in children previously vaccinated with inactivated virus. Sera from some of the latter cases differed from all the other sera studied by a high ratio of complement-fixation to hemagglutination-inhibition titers. In nearly all sera, the hemagglutination-inhibition titers were higher by a factor 4-8 when the split antigen was used instead of the whole virions, but this factor was increased to 50-62 in 5 of the 8 cases of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (Van Bogaert's leucoencephalitis). © 1969 Springer-Verlag.