ANTIBODY RESPONSE TO NON-STREPTOCOCCAL ANTIGENS AS RELATED TO RHEUMATIC FEVER SUSCEPTIBILITY 1

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Abstract
An attempt was made to explore the possibility that there exists in subjects with rheumatic fever a peculiarity of immune response which predisposes to the rheumatic state. Accordingly 23 children in the convalescent stage of rheumatic fever were immunized with either polyvalent influenza virus vaccine or with monovalent typhoid vaccine. 28 nonrheumatic children of comparable age were similarly immunized and served as controls. Blood samples were taken from all subjects for a sufficient period postimmunization in order to assay antibody response to these non-streptococcal antigens. Results of influenza immunization, using complement-fixing and hemagglutination inhibiting antibodies as indices of response, showed a wide variation of titer with no essential difference between the 2 groups. Whereas the geometric mean antibody to typhoid vaccine was slightly higher in rheumatic fever patients, there was extensive overlapping and scattering of individual responses in both groups over the 8-week period of study. On the basis of these observations using both a viral and bacterial antigen it seems unwarranted to attribute to these rheumatic individuals any general hyper-reactivity of immune response as an explanation for the development of the rheumatic state.