[Radioimmunological measurement of tetanus antitoxin]

A radioimmunological assay method has been developed for large-scale screening for tetanus antibodies. Its specificity is excellent and the sensitivity is in the region of 0.001 International Units per ml; it is thus comparable with the animal protective test. By this method a series of human sera was examined for which the vaccinal antitoxin titers were determined by animal protection tests. A parallel between the two tests was confirmed. Screening of 60 military recruits established that the test is usable as a mass method. Furthermore, the technique of Habermann and Wiegand was compared with ours and the results correlated well.