A prospective study of 78 pregnant women was undertaken to detect maternal enterovirus infection. Maternal faecal specimens and blood samples, placental and fetal tissue were taken for viral study, electron microscopy, histochemistry, and morphological examination. We present the post-mortem findings in three fetuses whose maternal infection was detected before delivery by isolation of ECHO virus type 33 and type 27 from faecal specimens and/or placental and fetal tissues. The morphological aspects were similar in all cases and included an acute infection of the placenta and hypoxic/hypotensive injury to fetal organs. In one case, viral particles were detected by electron microscopy of the fetal liver. This series of cases of intrauterine ECHO virus infection confirms the potential gravity of such infection during pregnancy and the need to prevent enteroviral disease.

We present a comparative histopathological study of both acute and chronic human adenovirus pneumonia, with reference to the cellular and extracellular matrix components. Seventeen lungs from autopsied patients whose ages ranged from 2 to 60 months were studied. Adenovirus types 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 were isolated from 15 patients with acute lung disease, and types 2 and 7 were isolated from the other two patients with chronic pulmonary illness. The results indicated the occurrence of two basic patterns of adenovirus interstitial pneumonia (1) classic pattern (acute), characterized by necrosis and degeneration and many type II pneumocytes with intranuclear inclusion bodies, which were positive for adenovirus DNA by in situ hybridization, and (2) proliferative or proliferative-productive pattern (chronic), which presented with diffuse pulmonary fibrosis and the interstitial proliferation of fibroblast-like cells, compatible with myofibroblasts (positive for vimentin and alpha smooth muscle actin), and increase in collagen types I and III, elastic fibers, and proteoglycans. Alveolar collapse appears to be an important pathogenetic mechanism in the development of this pattern.

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