Article in Japanese

Reliability of the improved IgM anti-measles virus antibody assay analyzed by using paired serum samples obtained from exanthem subitum patients

Tetsushi YOSHIKAWA¹⁾, Erina MATSUOKA¹⁾, Yoshiki KAWAMURA¹⁾, Masahiro OHASHI¹⁾, Naoko NISHIMURA²⁾, Takao OZAKI²⁾

False positives from anti-measles virus IgM antibody assay are major problem for laboratory diagnosis of measles virus infection. In order to solve this problem, the improved IgM anti-measles virus antibody assay was developed recently. Anti-measles virus IgM antibody titers were measured in paired serum obtained from exanthem subitum patients by the improved (method B) and previous method (method A) to evaluate reliability of the new method. Although 26 (32.5%) of the 80 sera were either positive or borderline by method A, only 10 (12.5%) were either positive or borderline by method B. 5 patients with positive or borderline anti-IgM levels had received MR vaccine within one month prior to the onset of febrile exanthematous illness. Another two patients with borderline levels of anti-IgM had received the vaccine 6 months before onset of the illness, which was considered to have no effect on anti-IgM antibody levels. Therefore, the improved anti-measles virus IgM antibody assay is considered to be highly reliable with a low false positive rate.

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1) Department of Pediatrics, Fujita Health University School of Medicine
2) Department of Pediatrics, Konan Kosei Hospital

Key words
Received	July 30, 2013
Accepted	September 25, 2013

25 (4)：427─432,2014