Prevalence of Cytomegalovirus Infection in Hospitalized Infants

Abstract

Data on cytomegalovirus infection (CMV) prevalence and course in hospitalized infants are rather scarce, obsolete and considerably inconsistent. AIM: to determine the prevalence, rate of clinical manifestations, risk factors and predictive capacity of clinical manifestations of CMV infection in hospitalized infants during their fi rst year of life. PATIENTS AND METHODS: All 163 infants hospitalized in the Pediatric Ward for Nonrespiratory Pathology in a tertiary hospital were serologically screened for cytomegalovirus infection for 10 months. In infants up to 6 months old that were CMV IgG (+) and CMV IgM (-) we followed up the CMV IgG concentration or compared it with that of their mothers. RESULTS: The CMV prevalence for the entire study sample was 33.1 ± 3.7% (54 seropositive out of 163 examined infants); in newborns it was 19.4 ± 6.7% (7 of 36), in infants aged 1-3 months -23.8 ± 5.4% (15 of 63), in 4-6-month olds -28.1 ± 8.1% (9 of 32), and in 7-12-month old -71.9 ± 8.1% (23 of 32). The rates of clinically apparent infections in the respective groups was 33.3 ± 6.5%, 57.01 ± 20.2%, 53.3 ± 13.3%, 33.3 ± 16.6%, and 13.0 ± 7.17%. The overall rate of clinically apparent CMV infection in all 163 children was between 11.0 ± 2.5% and 17.2 ± 2.9%. The probability of CMV infection increased with age and duration of breastfeeding. Hepatitis, cerebral vasculopathy and pneumonia (alone or combined) turned out to be predictors of CMV infection, but none of these symptoms had a frequency greater than 22%. CONCLUSIONS: We found a high rate of cytomegalovirus infections in hospitalized infants less than one year of age. This infection is the reason why at least 10% of the newborns and 12% of the children aged 1 to 3 months were hospitalised. The course was clinically apparent in over half of the infected children of up to 3 months of age.

Prevalence and risk factors of cytomegalovirus infection among HIV-infected and HIV-exposed uninfected infants in Nigeria

“…These values were lower than the prevalence of 93% among HIV-infected and the 90% among the HEU Kenyan infants at three months of age found in another study [15]. Also, the CMV prevalence of 41.4% in this study was higher than the respective 23.8% and 38.6% reported among Bulgarian [29] and Brazilian [30] hospitalized children of similar ages. In addition, the prevalence of acute CMV infection in this study was higher than the 15%-20% among HEU children [16] but lower than the 30%-40% among the HIV-infected children in the United States cohorts at six months of age [13].…”

Postmortem diagnosis of cytomegalovirus and accompanying other infection agents by real-time PCR in cases of sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI)

“…Such infections may have been perinatally or postnatally acquired since CMV-seropositivity is seen in the first 12 months in more than one third of the infants. 23,24 All of the post-mortem SUDI cases in this study were under the age of one.…”

“…3,27 CMV infection -primarily pneumonia-should definitely be considered in infancy periods (with or without immunocompromise) and CMV-DNA should be checked in babies without improved clinical conditions. 22,23 Even though the natal and perinatal transmission of CMV cannot be prevented, an assessment of the CMV-DNA in infants with unresolved disease would significantly decrease infant deaths due to CMV infections. 1,3 In conclusion, CMV infections that accompany chronic CMV sialadenitis and accompanying bacterial and viral infections may be seen in SUDI cases.…”

Detection of Cytomegalovirus (CMV) Infection in Wheezing Infants by Urine DNA and Serum IgG Testing

“…CMV resides long-term or life-long once it has invading the human body [7,8]. CMV is asymptomatic in most immunocompetent individuals, but immunosuppressed individuals, including fetuses and young infants, may have obvious symptoms for CMV infection [9]. Many organs including lung, retina, liver, and gastrointestinal tract are damaged by CMV [10,11].…”