Diagnosis of measles viral pneumonia in a patient with Hodgkin's disease by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction of serum.
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.
Mori
S
S
Second Department of Internal Medicine, Saitama Medical Center, Saitama Medical School, Japan.
Maruyama
H
H
Ito
I
I
Tokuhira
M
M
Koide
J
J
Takeuchi
T
T
Itoyama
S
S
Masunaga
A
A
Fukushima
M
M
Suzuki
H
H
Abe
T
T
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