MONDAY, Oct. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Children with asthma seem to respond to the measles vaccine just as those without asthma, according to a report in the October issue of the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Previous work has suggested that children with a TH2-predominant condition such as asthma may have a weaker response to the vaccine and may predispose these children to measles outbreaks.
To address this question, Young J. Juhn, M.D., M.P.H., of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and colleagues determined the measles virus specific IgG levels in 876 children in the Rochester Family Measles Study cohort.
The investigators found the seropositive response rates in the 156 children with asthma were similar to the remaining non-asthmatic children and were both approximately 90 percent. The equivocal response rates were slightly higher in asthmatic children, however.
"Although the findings reassure health care practitioners, whether this finding is generalizable to other vaccines and whether asthmatic patients with low antibody levels have normal cell-mediated immunity need to be elucidated in future studies," the authors write.
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