Clamydial antibody in sera of patients with trachoma.

Serum samples were taken in 1987 from 118 patients with trachoma seen in the Department of Opthalmology of the Gonder College of Medical Sciences, Gonder, Ethiopia, patients being staged according to MacCallan (II, III, IV), and classified in categories of different degrees of inflammation according to Dawson et al. Sera were investigated with the microIF test, using Chlamydia trachomatis serotypes A, B, C and partially D as antigens. Healthy Ethiopian students (n = 14), patients with chlamydial urogenital infections (n = 100), salpingitis (n = 47), and D-seronegative individuals (n = 574) served as controls. Patients with trachoma with severe inflammation showed significantly higher chlamydial antibody titres (greater than or equal to 1:128) against serotype A (p less than 0.05), B (p less than 0.01), and C (p less than 0.01) than patients with trivial, mild or moderate inflammatory symptoms. There was little correlation between MacCallan stages and chlamydial antibody titres, probably due to persistence of antibodies. In the control group of Ethiopian students only single persons were found to react with C. trachomatis serotypes A, B, and C in high titres; the geometric mean varied from x = 1:17 to x = 1:25 and distinctly differed from trachoma patients (x = 1:65). The individuals of other control groups showed high antibody titres against serotype C only in single cases and low geometric mean values.