[Etiology of acute and chronic bronchopulmonary diseases in children. II. A study of the specific immune response by counterimmunoelectrophoresis and the complement fixation and passive hemagglutination reactions].

Specific immune response to Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae has been studied in 158 children with acute pneumonia and pleuritis and 128 children with chronic pneumonia by countercurrent immunoelectrophoresis (CIE) and in the complement fixation (CFT) and passive hemagglutination (PHA) tests. The use of CIE leads to the detection of antibodies to H. influenzae in 23.7% of children with acute pneumonia and in 46.9% of children with chronic pneumonia. In the CFT antibodies to H. influenzae are also more often detected in children with chronic pneumonia (48%) than in those with acute respiratory infections (12.2%). In the PHA test high titers of antibodies to type b H. influenzae capsular polysaccharide occur in 11.9% of children with acute pneumonia and in 8.2% of children with chronic pneumonia.