Prevalence of measles antibodies in patients with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis in Poland in the years 1971–1978

Abstract

Between 1971 and 1978, clinical centres in four provinces of Poland reported 107 cases of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). This series comprised 73.8% boys and 26.2% girls. Most children were aged 6--8 years, and 66% of them had had measles in the first two years of life. As compared with a control group the geometric means of the haemagglutination-inhibiting antibodies and neutralizing antibodies were between ten and twenty times higher in SSPE patients. Determinations of the levels of antibodies carried out several times during the disease showed a rise of the titres to values as high as 1 : 128,000 in the serum and 1 : 1,024 in the cerebrospinal fluid in some cases.