Transverse myelitis and vaccines: a multi-analysis

Abstract

Transverse myelitis is a rare clinical syndrome in which an immune-mediated process causes neural injury to the spinal cord. The pathogenesis of transverse myelitis is mostly of an autoimmune nature, triggered by various environmental factors, including vaccination. Our aim here was to search for and analyze reported cases of transverse myelitis following vaccination. A systematic review of PubMed, EMBASE and DynaMed for all English-language journals published between 1970 and 2009 was preformed, utilizing the key words transverse myelitis, myelitis, vaccines, post-vaccination, vaccination and autoimmunity. We have disclosed 37 reported cases of transverse myelitis associated with different vaccines including those against hepatitis B virus, measles-mumps-rubella, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and others, given to infants, children and adults. In most of these reported cases the temporal association was between several days and 3 months, although a longer time frame of up to several years was also suggested. Although vaccines harbor a major contribution to public health in the modern era, in rare cases they may be associated with autoimmune phenomena such as transverse myelitis. The associations of different vaccines with a single autoimmune phenomenon allude to the idea that a common denominator of these vaccines, such as an adjuvant, might trigger this syndrome.