Mumps virus IgM and IgG (parotitis)
Mumps virus IgM and IgG parotitis.
Mumps virus IgM and igG (MUMM, MUMG. serum)
Symptoms: Fever, parotitis;
Complications: pancreatitis, orchitis, meningitis, inner ear hearing loss.
About the Mumps
Mumps, also called thick ear, is a usually harmless viral childhood disease caused by a paramyxovirus.
The disease is transmitted through the air or saliva and has an incubation period of 14 to 21 days.
The IgM antibodies can usually be detected from 3 days after the first day of illness and can be detected for several weeks after the illness, after that they change into IgG antibodies.
To demonstrate the virus at an earlier stage, a PCR test is also possible in the form of a DNA test for Parotitis virus RNA (PCR) from EDTA blood or sputum for € 195,-.
The swelling of the salivary gland is the most noticeable. The cheek can become quite thick. It is painful to eat and swallow.
During childhood, 30% of children have no symptoms at all or only an upper respiratory tract infection. However, these children are contagious to others.
Mumps can lead to the following complications:
- meningitis
- Brain inflammation (encephalitis)
- Inflammation of the fallopian tube (salpingitis)
- Inflammation of the testicle (orchitis)
- Inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis).
- Blindness
- Deafness
In children, meningitis occurs in less than 1.0% of cases. The other complications occur rarely. The prognosis for these complications is favourable.
When a person gets mumps after childhood, he or she has a higher risk of complications.
25% of men who develop mumps after puberty develop testicular inflammation (orchitis). This can lead to infertility, but this is extremely rare, also because it is usually a unilateral orchitis; in one in six patients both vas deferens become inflamed and even then it rarely leads to sterility. In large studies of sterile men, mumps is also rarely found to be an underlying cause.
Mumps was a common childhood disease in the Netherlands until the introduction of the BMR (mumps, measles and rubella) vaccine in 1987. The vaccination gives many people a poorer immune response than the natural mumps infection, but is more than enough to prevent epidemics with all the associated disadvantages.
