title: Diagnosis of measles viral pneumonia in a patient with Hodgkin's disease by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction of serum.
abstract: We report a case of fatal measles viral pneumonia in a patient with Hodgkin's disease who had no rash. The measles viral cDNA was detected in autopsy tissue from the lung by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. This method was then applied successfully to stored serum. The diagnosis of measles viral pneumonia may be improved by the application of RT-PCR using peripheral blood. Sequence analysis of amplified cDNA suggested the virus infecting this patient was a recent strain, predominantly isolated after 1980. The fatal outcome may have been due to a lack of immune response to the newer strain.
authors.affiliation: Second Department of Internal Medicine, Saitama Medical Center, Saitama Medical School, Japan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Maruyama
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tokuhira
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Koide
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Takeuchi
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Itoyama
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Masunaga
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fukushima
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Abe
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001483:Base Sequence; D017809:Fatal Outcome; D005260:Female; D006689:Hodgkin Disease / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D008459:Measles virus; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011024:Pneumonia, Viral / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction