Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is an important contributor to the morbidity and mortality associated with bone marrow transplantation (BMT). Infection may lead to CMV disease involving multiple organs such as pneumonia, gastroenteritis, retinitis, central nervus system involvement and others. CMV seropositivity is an important risk factor and approximately half of BMT recipients will develop clinically significant infection most commonly in the first 100 d post-transplant. The commonly used tests to diagnose CMV infection in these patients include the pp65 antigenemia test and the CMV DNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. Because of its greater sensitivity and lesser turnaround time, the CMV PCR is nowadays the preferred test and serves as a main guide for pre-emptive therapy. Methods of CMV prevention include use of blood products from seronegative donors or leukodepleted products. Prophylaxis or pre-emptive therapy strategies for CMV prevention may be used post-transplant with the latter becoming more common. The commonly used antivirals for pre-emptive therapy and CMV disease management include intravenous gancyclovir and foscarnet. The role of intravenous immunoglobulin, although used commonly in CMV pneumonia is not clear.
Background: The conventional HIV testing algorithm in most of the developed countries consists of two tests: an HIV enzyme immunoassay capable of identifying HIV-1 and HIV-2 antibodies and a confirmatory HIV-1 Western blot or immunofluorescence assay. However, the current algorithm for HIV diagnosis in India uses three sequential antibody assays. There has always been doubt regarding the benefits of this algorithm. Objective: To determine the utility of the current diagnostic algorithm and to find out the proportion of indeterminate or discrepant results. Methods: Retrospective analysis of HIV antibody testing data was carried out over a period of five years after institutional ethics committee approval. The specimens positive with the screening test and negative with both the supplemental tests were labeled as discrepant. Specimens positive with any of the two tests (screening and one of the supplemental tests) and negative with the remaining supplemental test were labeled as indeterminate. These indeterminate specimens were confirmed by immunoblotting. Results: A total of 141,296 samples were tested. Of these, 71 (0.05%) samples were indeterminate and 292 (0.21%) were discrepant. Western blot was done on 60 indeterminate samples of which 10 (16.67%) were positive for HIV 1 antibodies, 14 (23.33%) were negative for HIV antibodies and 36 (60%) had indeterminate result. Conclusion: In view of the low numbers of indeterminate and discrepant results, the current algorithm appears to be appropriate in our resource constrained setting. However, the algorithm for HIV testing should also include DNA PCR testing facility to resolve western blot indeterminate results.
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