PEDIATRICS Vol. 10 No. 6 December 1952, pp. 732-742
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SPECIAL REVIEWS

THE PRESENT STATUS OF GAMMA GLOBULIN

JEREMIAH A. BARONDESS M.D.1

1 The Communicable Disease Center, Public Health Service, Federal Security Agency, Atlanta, and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Editors: JOSEPH STOKES JR., M.D..

The studies which have led to the availability of gamma globulin for clinical use have been briefly reviewed, including those having to do with isolation, immunologic assay, purity, stability, safety and technic of administration.

Its use in a variety of virus infections has been described and reviewed, and the preliminary nature of many of these studies has been emphasized. It has been established that gamma globulin is an effective prophylactic agent not only in measles but in infectious (epidemic) hepatitis. Gamma globulin prepared from convalescent mumps serum is useful in reducing the incidence of complicating orchitis in mumps. There is evidence that it may be a valuable prophylactic agent against rubella. It gives promise of value as a prophylactic against poliomyelitis, although the definitive field trials are yet to be conducted. Its proper application in serum hepatitis and varicella is yet to be defined.

It would seem, in view of the uniformity of antibody titers, where it has been possible to measure these, and in view of the uniformity of protection from gamma globulin in a variety of conditions in which it has been tested, that the donors from whose plasma the material has been prepared have in general been immunized against these diseases, either by clinical or subclinical infection, and this reasoning may be extended to the general population from which these donors are drawn. Thus, aside from the practical clinical and epidemiologic applications which are appearing for gamma globulin, it shows promise of becoming an important tool in research in the basic biology of host-parasite relationships, including certain aspects of immunity as well as virus ecology.

Submitted on May 26, 1952