Objective : Tetanus decreased in prevalence since the systemic vaccination began in 1940s. Despite of the improvement in treatment like critical care with ventilatior or antibiotics, the mortality rate resides around 45%. Currently the tetanus prevent...
Objective : Tetanus decreased in prevalence since the systemic vaccination began in 1940s. Despite of the improvement in treatment like critical care with ventilatior or antibiotics, the mortality rate resides around 45%. Currently the tetanus prevention protocol recommends immunization in infancy and boosters every tenth years. Thereafter the immunization with toxoid only or toxoid plus immunoglobulin injections is recommended according to the type of injury. In most of ED in Korea, only tetanus immunoglobulin is given without any basis. Previously we proved the effect that passive immunization with the immunoglubulin 250 IU last long for only a month. At this time we measured the effect of the active immunization with toxoid and its effect was compared to the effect of the tetanus immunoglobulin to find out the logical tetanus prevention after an injury. Method: 20 healthy adult volunteers were injected with tetanus toxoid and their anti-tetanus antibody titers measured before the injection, 1 week and 4 weeks after the inection. No volunteers have taken any medication for chronic illness(e.g. hepatits, tuberculosis) or had an tetanus immunization or booster in the last 6 months. Antibody titers were measured by IMMUNOZYM??-TETANUS and t-test was performed on the results, Results:
1. Total 20 volunteers(12 males and 8 females) were participated.
2. Subjects` ages were 21 to 44 years old and there were no relevance to the antibody titer.
3. The antibody titers of before the anti-tetanus toxoid injection and 1 week, 4 weeks after the injection revealed significant difference and the antibody titers of the first and the forth week after the injection also showed a significant difference.
Conclusion: Currently in Korea, the tetenus immunoglobulin 250 IU given alone as tetanus prevention was injected, but it did not elevate the anti-tetanus antibody titer for 4 weeks where as tetanus toxoid injected intramuscularly did significantly. Therefore, tetanus toxoid should be given on the dirty injuries with additional tetanus immunoglobulin injection to accomplish the correct method of tetanus, tetanus toxoid prevention.