• Selçuk Nazik, Filiz Orak, Hakan Hakkoymaz, and Ahmet Rıza Şahin.
• Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Department of Infectious Disease and Clinical Microbiology, Kahramanmaraş, 46100, Turkey.
• Arch Iran Med. 2020 Feb 1; 23 (2): 99-103.

BackgroundClostridium tetani is an anaerobic, gram-positive bacillus that causes tetanus infection. It usually enters the body through injury with contaminated objects. Tetanus differs from other diseases that can be prevented by vaccination in that it is not contagious and does not spread from person to person. The aim of this study is to evaluate the levels of Tetanus IgG in trauma patients admitted to the emergency department (ED).MethodsThe study was planned as cross-sectional, prospective, and single-center. The study was conducted from January to July 2018 in the Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University Hospital. Totally, 178 patients aged ≥18 years were included. For measurement of the level of Tetanus IgG, Clostridium tetani toxin 5S IgG kit (NovaLisa, NOVATEC) was used to quantitatively detect IgG type antibodies by micro-ELISA method in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendation.ResultsIn total, 143 cases were male and 35 were female. The mean age of the cases was 40 ± 16 years. Tetanus IgG levels were found to be 0.29 ± 0.6 IU/mL in cases from rural areas and 2.14 ± 1.64 IU/mL in cases from urban areas (P < 0.001). There was a negative correlation between age and Tetanus IgG level (r: (-) 0.479; P < 0.001). The protective level of Tetanus IgG was observed to be even lower, especially in patients aged ≥40 years (n = 43, 78.9%).ConclusionMeasurements of Tetanus IgG levels should be performed as far as possible in the ED. In this way, unnecessary vaccination can be avoided.© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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