A STUDY OF THE DELAYED-HYPERSENSITIVITY RESPONSE IN HEALTHY PEOPLE IN SPAIN - SPANISH NATIONAL TABLES

With a view to creating national tables of the delayed hypersensitivity response, a total of 1476 healthy persons were studied at eight different locations in Spain. For the measurement of delayed cellular immunity response, Multitest IMC was used. Of those examined, 0.7% were anergic, 21.3 were relatively anergic, and 73 were immunocompetent. Of the 766 men, 28 were relatively anergic and 3 were anergic, whereas of the 710 women, 14 were relatively anergic (p < .001) and 8% were anergic (p < .001). The highest incidence of anergy was found in women of over 70 years (p < .001). Tuberculin was the antigen with the most positive responses, 77%, followed by Candida with 58%. Trichophyton and Proteus mirabilis were the antigens least recognized by the Spaniards studied. Major geographical variations were observed, both in the overall index for the delayed hypersensitivity response and in the response to different antigens. Catalonia revealed the highest level of anergy and the Valencia region, the lowest.