Viral Hepatitis, Type A

Abstract

Hepatitis A antibody was detected by specific immune adherence and complement-fixation tests in a study involving 473 serum specimens from 20 patients who had viral hepatitis, Type A. In all 20 patients who had no detectable immune adherence antibody (< 1:5) before onset of hepatitis high levels (⪖ 1:1024) developed one to four weeks later, occasionally reaching peak levels exceeding ⪖ 1:81,920 several months thereafter. Five to 10 years later the immune adherence antibody levels ranged between 1:640 and 1:20,480. In general, the complement-fixation test was not as sensitive or as specific as the immune adherence test. These findings indicate that the immune adherence test should be a valuable tool for diagnosis, for epidemiologic surveys, for identification of susceptible and immune persons, for quantitative assays of gamma globulin and for identification of hepatitis A virus in attempts to propagate the virus in cell culture. (N Engl J Med 292:1141–1143 1975)