1.Prevalence of Antibody to Toxic Shock Syndrome Toxin-1 in Burn Patients.
Ji Young PARK ; Jae Seok KIM ; Heungjeong WOO
Annals of Laboratory Medicine 2015;35(1):89-93
BACKGROUND: Burn wounds lack normal barriers that protect against pathogenic bacteria, and burn patients are easily colonized and infected by Staphylococcus aureus. Toxic shock syndrome (TSS) is a rare but fatal disease caused by S. aureus. A lack of detectable antibodies to TSS toxin-1 (TSST-1) in serum indicates susceptibility to TSS. METHODS: A total of 207 patients (169 men and 38 women; median age, 42.5 yr) admitted to a burn center in Korea were enrolled in this study. The serum antibody titer to TSST-1 was measured by sandwich ELISA. S. aureus isolates from the patients' nasal swab culture were tested for TSST-1 toxin production by PCR-based detection of the TSST-1 toxin gene. RESULTS: One hundred seventy-four (84.1%) patients showed positive results for antibody against TSST-1. All patients aged > or =61 yr (n=28) and <26 months (n=7) were positive for the anti-TSST-1 antibody. S. aureus was isolated from 70 patients (33.8%), and 58.6% of the isolates were methicillin resistant. Seventeen patients were colonized with TSST-1-producing S. aureus. The antibody positivity in these 17 carriers was 88.2%, and the positivity in the non-carriers was 83.7%. CONCLUSIONS: Most burn patients had antibody to TSST-1, and nasal colonization with TSST-1-producing S. aureus was associated with positive titers of anti-TSST-1 antibody. Additionally, patients with negative titers of anti-TSST-1 antibody might be susceptible to TSS.
Adolescent
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Adult
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Aged
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Aged, 80 and over
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Antibodies, Bacterial/*blood
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Bacterial Toxins/genetics/immunology/*metabolism
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Burns/blood/*immunology/*microbiology/pathology
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Child
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Child, Preschool
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Enterotoxins/genetics/immunology/*metabolism
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Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
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Female
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Humans
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Infant
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Male
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Middle Aged
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Nasal Cavity/microbiology
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Polymerase Chain Reaction
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Prevalence
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Staphylococcal Infections/epidemiology
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Staphylococcus aureus/isolation & purification/*metabolism
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Superantigens/genetics/immunology/*metabolism
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Young Adult