[Incidence of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in a population of hospitalized patients during an epidemic].

During an outbreak with Mycoplasma pneumoniae, a serological survey was performed with 3,165 sera from 1,900 hospitalized patients over a 33 months period. Four hundred and eleven patients exhibit serological pattern suggestive for a recent infection. The main points are the following: the infection was more frequently (21.6%) detected in females than males, in the patients 5 to 19 years than in the other age groups; the incidence of the infection is the same in the group of patients hospitalized for extra-respiratory syndromes compared to respiratory infections; children and teen-agers exhibit the higher antibody titers; no modification of the type of infection was found in relation with age groups; the antibody titers are higher when patients are hospitalized with respiratory diseases, whatever their age group may be; there is no relation between sex and the type of infection, pulmonary or extra-pulmonary; a surprisingly high incidence of infections was detected in patients hospitalized with renal failure.