HOMOLOGOUS SERUM HEPATITIS

Abstract

During the 5-yr. period from 1942 to 1947, 15 cases of hepatitis presumably due to transfusions of plasma and/or blood occurred in a civilian general hospital. Of the 15 cases, 8 received plasma alone, 6 both plasma and blood, and one received blood alone. Thus, pooled plasma, the more likely carrier of hepatitis virus, was received by 14 (93%) of the patients. Closer analysis of the data obtained in the 19-month period from Jan., 1946, to Aug. 9, 1947, indicated that 64 pools of plasma were made from the blood of 1143 donors, with a range of 9 to 22 donors per pool. This plasma was given to 621 recipients of whom 6 (0.96%) developed acute hepatitis after an appropriate incubation period. Of interest is the fact that although the incidence of hepatitis was apparently low in patients receiving plasma (0.96%), the percentage of potentially icterogenic pools of plasma was high. The 6 patients who developed hepatitis had received 10 pools of plasma, so that a minimum of 5 (8%) and a maximum of 10 (16%) of the pools were presumably affected with hepatitis virus. Under different conditions possibly involving, among other things, increased virulence of virus and decreased resistance of host, the incidence of artificial transmission of disease by such potentially icterogenic plasma might be subject to wide variations, thereby possibly explaining the much greater incidence of disease in reports of others.