J Infect Dis. 2023 Jun 7:jiad212. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiad212. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: To reduce the risk of pertussis related morbidity and mortality in early life, an increasing number of countries recommend maternal pertussis vaccination. Hence, there is limited knowledge about half-lives of vaccine-induced pertussis-specific maternal antibodies, especially in preterm infants and factors potentially influencing them.
METHODS: We compared two different approaches to provide estimates of the half-lives of pertussis-specific maternal antibodies in infants and explored potential effects on the half-life for two studies. In the first approach, we estimated the half-lives per child and used these estimates as responses in linear models. In the second approach, we used linear mixed effect models on a log-2 transformed scale of the longitudinal data to use the inverse of the time parameter as an estimate for the half-lives.
RESULTS: Both approaches provided similar results. The identified covariates partly explain differences in half-life estimates. The strongest evidence we observed was a difference between term and preterm infants, with the preterm showing a higher half-life. Among others, a longer interval between vaccination and delivery increases the half-life.
CONCLUSION: Several variables influence the decay speed of maternal antibodies. Both approaches have (dis)advantages, while the choice is secondary when assessing the half-life of pertussis-specific antibodies. Brief summary: We compared two approaches for estimating the half-life of vaccine-induced pertussis-specific maternal antibodies, focusing on the difference between preterm and term born infants, while also examining other variables. Both approaches yielded similar results, with preterm infants showing a higher half-life.
PMID:37285482 | DOI:10.1093/infdis/jiad212
