Serologic Diagnosis of Infectious Mononucleosis: A Comparative Study of Five Tests

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Abstract
Presumptive, differential, Wollner''s I and II, and beef hemolysin (BH) tests were done concurrently on 241 specimens from 130 patients with infectious mononucleosis (IM) and specimens from 37 patients with elevated sheep agglutinin (SA) titers but diagnosed as not IM. In the presumptive test, 82.9% of IM sera had a titer of 224 or higher while 83.7% of not IM sera had a titer of 28 or lower. SA titers of IM sera absorbed with guinea pig kidney decreased not more than 3 tubes and those of sera absorbed with boiled beef erythrocytes decreased at least 4 tubes. IM sera absorbed with papain-treated sheep erythrocytes retained the SA titer with untreated cells but no longer agglutinated papain-treated cells. Under the test conditions, the BH titer was 40 or higher for IM sera and below 40 for all control serums. The patients injected with blood group specific substances A and B developed high titers of SA and BH. The differential, Wollner II, and beef hemolysin tests are valuable in the diagnosis of IM.