Neutralizing Antibody Response and SARS Severity

摘要

Using the Taiwan nationwide laboratory-confirmedsevere acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) database, weanalyzed neutralizing antibody in relation to clinical out-comes. With a linear mixed model, neutralizing antibodytiter was shown to peak between week 5 and week 8 afteronset and to decline thereafter, with a half-life of 6.4 weeks.Patients with a longer illness showed a lower neutralizingantibody response than patients with a shorter illness dura-tion (p = 0.008). When early responders were comparedwith most patients, who seroconverted on and after week 3of illness, the small proportion (17.4%) of early responders(antibody detectable within 2 weeks) had a higher deathrate (29.6% vs. 7.8%) (Fisher exact test, p = 0.004), had ashorter survival time of 60 years of age (Fisherexact test, p = 0.01). Our findings have implications forunderstanding the pathogenesis of SARS and for SARSvaccine research and development