Dysfunction of humoral immunity in anergic surgical patients: absence of anti-tetanus IgG antibody production.

The experiments described have shown that, whereas the injection of tetanus toxoid (tet) into 8 of 12 control individuals resulted in the appearance of specific anti-tet-IgG antibodies in their plasma, immunization of 14 anergic patients did not elicit an antibody response. This observation was extended to an in vitro system, where cells from four control subjects were shown to secrete anti-tet-IgG antibodies in response to polyclonal activators whereas cells from eight anergic patients did not. It is suggested that this failure of humoral immunity could account for the high risk of bacterial infections in anergy.