This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Klaus Lind, MD
Statens Seruminstitut Copenhagen

JAMA. 1977;237(18):1929-1930.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

In their article on acute hemolytic anemia with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (236: 1140, 1976), Drs Turtzo and Ghatak mention that the diagnosis of M pneumoniae infection is usually made on the basis of a rising titer of cold agglutinin (CA). They acknowledge the fact that the CA test is unspecific, since other infections (eg, those caused by virus) may give a positive CA titer. However, their statement that titers in these cases are usually low (1:32 or less) in contrast to CA titers in M pneumoniae infections is not documented and is in disagreement with other findings.¹

Their miscitation of an article² by saying that a fourfold rise in CA titer is virtually diagnostic creates a pitfall for the clinician, since CA titer rises of the same magnitude may, in fact, be seen during infections other than those caused by M pneumoniae.¹

The authors . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?