Studies on tetanus and diphtheria vaccination. Part 1. Studies on measurement of human tetanus antitoxin value and diphtheria antitoxin value by the passive hemagglutination method (author's transl)

Abstract

In a total of 860 cases, measurements of human serum tetanus antitoxin values and diphtheria antitoxin values were made with highly purified antigen to hold down nonspecific reaction to the minimum by the sheep hemagglutination method excellent in reproducibility and the values thus obtained were studied in comparison with those of in vivo measurement made by the toxin neutralization reaction hinter to in practice.The passive hemagglutination value (HA value) not being in agreement with the neutralizing value (NT value) was considered inappropriate. In the present experiment, however, the cases were divided into groups by concentration; when the HA value was compared with the NT value, the higher the amount of antitoxin was, the smaller was the HA/NT ratio irrespective of the history of preventive vaccination, and the HA/NT ratio became greater in the group with a low amount of antitoxin. That is, the HA/NT ratio stood at 1.30±0.14 in the group with the tetanus NT value of less than 1.0 Au/ml, at 0.65±0.07 in a group with the tetanus NT value of more than 1.0 Au/ml, at 1.39±0.30 in a group with the diphtheria NT value of less than 0.1 Au/ml and at 0.57±0.16 in a group with the diphtheria NT value of more than 10 Au/ml.When the correlation between HA and NT by the group of concentration was examined, it was statistically significant at less than 1% level in all groups.HA value and NT value need not be in agreement with each other judging from their respective mode of reaction. So, a method whereby the correlation between the two for each concentration is found and NT values are calculated from HA values can be put to practical use widely as an economical and easy to operate method, about which we are confident in the light of the result obtained with the present study.