Control of Potency and the Dosage of Diphtheria and Tetanus Toxoids

Quantificação de anticorpos diftéricos em cobaias: I - persistência do título de anticorpos séricos em animais inoculados com uma dose de toxóide diftérico

“…Por outro lado, a verificação da dinâmica da anticorpogênese, baseados em estudos realizados em animais de laboratório, apesar de proporcionar boa orientação, não prevê com segurança, efeito da imunização no homem, extrapolando diretamente esses resultados para a espécie humana 10,35 . Porém no caso da cobaia, esta comparação pode ser feita com boa margem de segurança, como foi demonstrado por Van Ramshorst e col. 34 .…”

Influence of Mouse Strain on the Assayed Potency (Unitage) of Tetanus Toxoid

“…Standardization of toxoids by such assays allows a comparison of the immunogenicity of different toxoids prepared in the same or different laboratories, allows for a better comparison of the immunological response in man to different toxoids, and may allow for the establishment of a minimum quantity of toxoid to be given for primary immunization or a maximum quantity to be given for a booster. In addition, it would appear that the duration of protective antitoxin titers may be directly related to the unitage of a toxoid (10,32). The validity of comparisons of human responses to toxoids assayed by the use of different strains of mice becomes questionable.…”

Pertussis Immunization

“…A combined preparation containing pertussis vaccine, diphtheria toxoid and tetanus toxoid will immunize infants against all these diseases; as one might expect, however, the responses of infants younger than three months to the diphtheria component are modified considerably by the presence of maternal antibodies (di Sant'Agnese 1949; Peterson and Christie 1951). When immunization with triple antigen is begun at the age of three months, satisfactory responses are obtained to all three components (Greenberg and Fleming 1950; Greenberg and Benoit 1956, with an adsorbed vaccine; Butler and Ungar 1960, with a plain vaccine) (Table III). Indeed, there is laboratory and clinical evidence to show that the presence of pertussis vaccine in triple antigen has a potentiating effect on both the diphtheria and the tetanus toxoids.…”