IgM and IgG antibody response in two immunosuppressed patients with Legionnaires' disease. Evidence of reactivation of latent infection.

Two patients in whom pneumonia due to Legionella pneumophila developed while they were receiving immunosuppressive therapy had serologic evidence of prior infection with the same serogroup of L. pneumophila two and eight months prior to their clinical pneumonia. This suggests that the pneumonia in these patients may have been due to the reactivation of a latent infection, possibly due to their immunosuppressed state. A new enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed to detect IgG and IgM antibodies to L. pneumophila, and the kinetics of these antibody responses were useful diagnostically.