No Cure Yet For Infectious, Mononucleosis

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31345, 15 April 1967, Page 5

No Cure Yet For Infectious, Mononucleosis

(Reprinted from “Newsweek” by arrangement)

Thousands of American college students casually refer to infectious mononucleosis as the “kissing disease,” and some look on it as a good excuse to miss examinations or term papers.

But for college doctors, the kissing disease is no joke—mononucleosis ranks just behind influenza and respiratory infections in filling their infirmary beds, and a cure is not yet in sight.

For this reason, the American College Health Association devoted two days of its annual meeting in Washington recently to a review of what they now know, and need to find out, about mononucleosis. Origin Of Name Infectious mononucleosis gets its medical name from the fact that toe disease is probably transmitted by a virus and involves an inreease, in toe bloodstream, of mononuclear lyphocytes—a type of white blood cell—as well as toe development of abnormally large forms of these lymphocytes. The kissing disease nickname came about in 1955, when Colonel Robert J. Hoagland, a physician at the United States Military Academy, West Point, noted that outbreaks of mononucleosis, among cadets, reached their peak about six weeks after they had returned from

leave. Moreover, the disease did not seem to spread from room-mate to room-mate. The young men, he concluded, contracted the disease “by kissing with more than filial intensity.” Other physicians at' the A.C.H.A. meeting agreed that the virus of mononucleosis is spread by saliva and that up to three out of four cases probably occur through kissing. Sharing a bottle of cola or beer, however, can be another likely means of spreading mononucleosis. Mononucleosis can be a baffling disease. It does not seem to be as contagious as influenza and similar respiratory diseases. For example, attempts to infect volunteers with mononucleosis by spraying their throats with infected saliva—or even injecting blood serum from mononucleosis victims have seldom produced toe disease. Rarely Fatal Symptoms appear in 33 to 49 days, including fever ranging as high as 104, chills, sore throat and profound fatigue. The lymph nodes, liver and spleen may become swollen because of the accumulation of white blood cells. Victims may show signs of jaundice and toe disease can be confused with hepatitis. But it is rarely fatal.

The best treatment, doctors at the meeting agreed, seems to be bed rest until fever and fatigue have subsided. In more severe cases, steroid hormones such as prednisone may lower toe fever and reduce throat swelling and soreness. On The Rise

Although the disease runs its course in one to three weeks, many patients complain that the lassitude may last for months. For that reason, many schools send infected students home for toe rest of the semester. Dr. Kenneth D. Rose of toe University of Nebraska, however, believes that mononucleosis is a simple disease and there's no reason for a person to miss work or classes unless he has a fever. Still, mononucleosis puts more than 10,000 college

youngsters out of action each year, according to Dr. Alfred S. Evans of Yale, and appears to be on toe increase in toe United States. The disease is most common, Dr. Evans noted, from age 15 to 25, but is occurring with greater frequency in older groups as did poliomyelitis before development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines. And as in poliomyelitis, toe older toe mononucleosis victim is, the greater toe severity of the disease.

A vaccine to prevent mononucleosis, however, won’t be possible until researchers have finally tracked down the viruses that cause the disease —and the job may be formidable. “We shouldn’t think of one disease and one cause,” Dr. Rose warns. “There may be a variety of things which cause the mononucleosis syndrome.”