A  STUDY ON THE  EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTITETANUS  IMMUNOGLOBLIN

Ha, Yeong Rok; Kim, Ok Jun; Choi, Ok Kyeong; Goo, Hong Du; Kim, Seung Whan; Park, In Cheol; Lee, Kyeong Ryong; Jung, Sung Pil; Jang, Seok Joon; Shim, Ho Shik; Lee, Jung Woon

J Korean Soc Emerg Med > Volume 5(2); 1994 > Article

Original Article

Journal of The Korean Society of Emergency Medicine 1994;5(2): 258-262.

A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTITETANUS IMMUNOGLOBLIN

Yeong Rok Ha¹, Ok Jun Kim¹, Ok Kyeong Choi¹, Hong Du Goo¹, Seung Whan Kim¹, In Cheol Park¹, Kyeong Ryong Lee¹, Sung Pil Jung¹, Seok Joon Jang¹, Ho Shik Shim¹, Jung Woon Lee²

¹Department of Emergency Medicine, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine
²Department of Clinical Pathology, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine

Published online: December 31, 1994.

ABSTRACT

Despite the progress in treatment modality, tetanus still has a high mortality rate. However, the morbidity of tetanus can be decreased through proper prophylactic measures. Although Center for Disease Control(CDC) recommands Td or Td/TIG injection depending on prior immunization state and wound character, TIG alone is being injected to patient with open wound for tetanus prophylaxis in Korea. Therefore, we studied antitetanus antibody titers after injecting 250IU of TIG to evaluate TIG's duration of immunization effect, in vivo. TIG 250IU was injected to 42 healthy adult volunteers and their antitetanus antibody titers were measured at prior to TIG injection, 1 week and 4 weeks after injection. Antibody titers were measured by using ELISA assay with IMMUNOZYM®-TETANUS and their results were verified by using the standard t-test. Mean antitetanus antibody titers were 0.167 土 0.03IU/mL, 0.211 土 0.03IU/mL and 0.186 土0. 03IU/mL at before injection, 1 week and 4 weeks after injection, respectively. Antibody titers showed significant difference between values at before injection and 1 week after injection. However, no difference was found between the values before injection and 4 weeks after injection. The practice of injecting TIG 250IU alone for prophylaxis has little effect on maintaining an increased antitetanus antibody titer until 4 weeks after injection.

Key words: Antitetanus antibody titer, TIG.