Mycoplasma pneumoniae Infections

Abstract

Mycoplasma pneumoniae (Eaton agent) caused a significant amount of acute febrile respiratory disease in Seattle during 1962 and 1963. The agent was isolated from 20% of 215 pneumonia patients and from 7% of 248 patients with febrile respiratory disease without pneumonitis. The highest isolation rate was from persons 10 to 25 years of age and the lowest from children under 5 years old. The pneumonia cases were similar clinically to previous descriptions of cold-agglutinin-positive primary atypical pneumonia. These infections occurred at all seasons of the year and were more frequent in males. A complement-fixation antibody test using a chloroformmethanol solvent-extracted antigen from broth-grown M pneumoniae was found to be highly sensitive and specific. The complement-fixation test is simple and inexpensive and should replace the cold-agglutinin test for routine diagnosis.