title: Use of turkey red blood cells in the passive haemagglutination test for studying tetanus immunity.
abstract: Passive haemagglutination (HA) assays were performed using turkey red blood cells (TRBC-HA) on sera from normal healthy people, from normal people previously immunized against tetanus, and from tetanus patients receiving human antitetanus immunoglobulins. The TRBC-HA test was compared with haemagglutination assays using sheep red blood cells (SRBC-HA) and with the neutralization (NT) test, and was found to be more sensitive than the SRBC-HA test and showed good correlation with the NT test.While the SRBC-HA assay calls for adsorption of sheep red blood cell agglutinins from the sera to be tested, the use of turkey red blood cells does not require any such adsorption. In addition, the TRBC-HA assay can be performed in 40 minutes compared with 6 hours for the SRBC-HA assay. All these advantages make the TRBC-HA assay a more useful test for screening large numbers of sera in the evaluation of tetanus immunity of normal people and of patients with wounds when seen in the emergency room of hospitals.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D006386:Hemagglutination Tests / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D009500:Neutralization Tests; D012756:Sheep / Q000276:immunology; D013742:Tetanus / Q000276:immunology*; D014422:Turkeys / Q000276:immunology*