Return to Abstract Index
Title
Immunization against whooping cough: a neuropathological review.
AuthorCorsellis JA; Janota I; Marshall AK
Source
Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol,
9:
4, 1983 Jul-Aug,
261-70
AbstractThe neuropathological aspects of vaccination against pertussis have been analysed. This has been
done partly by considering the previous literature and partly by searching for data on any child whose death
since 1960 has been thought to have a possible relationship to the vaccination. Twenty-nine in due course
were identified on whom a post-mortem examination had been made. Eighteen had died within 3 weeks
of inoculation - the remaining eleven had survived the initial illness but had remained retarded, epileptic
and disabled. Although a variety of cerebral abnormalities were found, neither those recorded
in the present study nor those abstracted from previous case reports, have demonstrated a recurring pattern
of inflammatory or other damage which could be accepted as a specific reaction to immunization
against whooping cough. Those reactive changes that were occasionally found appear to be indistinguishable
from those seen in many other infantile encephalopathies occurring as the result of a hypoxic/ischaemic
state supervening on a complex of respiratory complications, fever and convulsions.