Systemic and local immune responses after parenteral influenza vaccination in juvenile diabetic patients and healthy controls: results from a pilot study

Diabetes patients suffer frequent complications and some excess mortality after influenza virus infection. Despite widespread agreement that diabetic patients should be routinely vaccinated against influenza, some reports claim that diabetics have a poor immune response to influenza vaccine. We have performed a pilot study to examine the humoral immune response of juvenile diabetics and matched healthy controls vaccinated with inactivated trivalent influenza vaccine. By enzyme-linked immunospot assay we found that both groups had comparable magnitude and kinetics of influenza-specific antibody secreting cell response. The influenza-specific antibody response in both serum and oral fluid were similar for both groups, and also showing a kinetic profile in accordance with our earlier data for healthy adults. Our study did not detect a difference in the humoral immune response between juvenile diabetics and healthy controls.