An aid to the rapid diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections.

Abstract

Although Mycoplasma pneumoniae has been isolated with fairly high frequency from the throats of patients infected with this agent [1-3], the patient is often discharged from the hospital before definitive results can be obtained. The cold agglutinin test [4; 5, p. 51] is widely used as a means of serologic diagnosis; however, cold agglutinins are not specific [6], and titers of less than 1:64 are generally considered inconclusive. In other serologic tests, such as complement fixation (CF) [7], hemagglutination inhibition (HI) [8], and tetrazolium reduction inhibition (TRI) [9], it has been necessary to demonstrate a significant rise in antibody titer between paired specimens of serum. The present method makes it possible, by the demonstration of early 19S CF antibody sensitive to 2-mercapto-ethanol (2-ME), to confirm the diagnosis using a single specimen of serum and to obtain the results within 1-2 days after the blood is drawn.