Adenovirus Type 12 Infection

Abstract

IN 1962, Trentin and others 1 reported that adenovirus type 12 produced undifferentiated sarcoma when injected into newborn hamsters after an interval of 33 days or more. This was the first report of malignancies produced in animals by inoculation of virus of human origin. Reports of recovery of this virus from specimens taken from ill children have been few. The prototype strain (Huie) was recovered from the stool specimen of a child with suspected nonparalytic poliomyelitis. 2 Further isolations have been made from the anal swabs of apparently well children. 3,4 Recent reports have described the recovery of this virus from specimens from children with central nervous system (CNS) disease 5,6 and illnesses resembling acute lymphocytosis. 7 This report describes illnesses of three infants and one child from whom adenovirus type 12 was recovered, the serologic responses of the patients to the infection, and studies of the incidence of neutralizing