Elsevier

The Journal of Pediatrics

Volume 154, Issue 2, February 2009, Pages 296-298.e1
The Journal of Pediatrics

Clinical and laboratory observation
Seasonal Variation of Maternally Derived Respiratory Syncytial Virus Antibodies and Association with Infant Hospitalizations for Respiratory Syncytial Virus

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2008.07.053Get rights and content

This study used 459 prospectively sampled cord blood samples to examine the association between maternally derived respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)–neutralizing antibodies and the RSV hospitalization season in Denmark. We found a clear temporal association and suggest that RSV-neutralizing antibody level plays a role in the RSV seasonal pattern.

Section snippets

Material

We used cord blood samples from the Danish National Birth Cohort in combination with data from the RSV database on RSV hospitalizations in the Danish infant population.

Results

Two serum samples had insufficient quantity for the analysis and were excluded. The geometric mean titer of maternally derived RSV-neutralizing antibody in 457 cord blood samples was 7.89 to the log base 2 (percentiles 10% 6; 25% 7; 50% 8; 75% 9; 90% 10).

A temporal correlation between the incidence of RSV hospitalization and the mean RSV antibody titer in cord blood samples was observed (P = .00, correlation coefficient = −0.25) (Figure). Incidence of RSV hospitalization increased when cord RSV

Discussion

This study offered a unique possibility to examine the association between the maternally derived RSV-neutralizing antibody titer in consecutively sampled cord blood and RSV seasonality measured as the weekly RSV hospitalization incidence among Danish infants below 6 months of age. For antibody detection we used an assay that specifically detected neutralizing antibodies and identified titer values similar to the values of an earlier study.10 We found a clear association between the maternally

References (10)

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Conflict of interest and funding information available in the Appendix (available at www.jpeds.com).

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