What is considered the most difficult problem among the side reactions following inoculation of DPT triple vaccine is fever which is observed in about 30 percent of the cases. Particulary in infants, fever may cause convulsion, to which attention should be paid.
In the present experiment, the author studied how post-inoculation fever can be suppressed using more than 1000 cases inoculated with DPT triple vaccine as the subject.
Acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) 10mg/kg was administered at various time intervals. As a result, administration of 10mg/kg each at the 3rd and 9th hour after inoculation appeared to produce effective antipyretic action.
Meanwhile, ASA preparations are effective for rheumatoid arthritis, and nowadays they are considered to act as an immunosuppressive agent. In fact, R. S. Punish & his co-worker reported that function of lymphocytes is lowered after administration of ASA.
Thus, the amount of serum diphtheria and tetanus antitoxin was examined by hemagglutination method in a part of the cases, to which ASA was administered by the above mentioned method. As a result, there was no difference in the production of antitoxin between the ASA administered cases and the non administerd ones.
When the function of lymphocyte 24 hours after administration of ASA 10mg/kg was examined by the uptake of
3H-thymidine by PHA stimulation, there was no difference either between the two groups.
The blood ASA level 24 hours after administration of ASA was not more than 2.3mg/ml by the above mentioned method.
From the above, it was judged that administration of ASA 10mg/kg each at the 3rd hour and 9th hour after inoculation of DPT triple vaccine would suppress fever significantly and that this dose would exert little influence on the immunogenic system.
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