Abstract
Summary
Measles antibodies were measured in the cerebrospinal fluids of 119 patients with multiple sclerosis and 112 patients with other neurological diseases. The frequency of measles antibody was significantly greater in the MS group than in the control group, and, in the sensitive mixed-hemadsorbing antibody test, the geometric mean antibody titer was also significantly higher in the MS than control group.
A few MS patients had antibody levels in the range of patients with SSPE. On the other hand, one-fourth of the MS patients had no measles antibody by any of five different assays employed, and nearly one-third more had none but hemadsorbing antibody. If measles virus is involved in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis, it must be present in an unusually latent, masked, or defective condition.
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