Congenital and perinatal cytomegalovirus infection

Abstract

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is currently the most common agent of congenital infection and the leading infectious cause of brain damage and hearing loss in children. Symptomatic congenital CMV infections usually result from maternal primary infection during early pregnancy. One half of symptomatic infants have cytomegalic inclusion disease (CID), which is characterized by involvement of multiple organs, in particular, the reticuloendothelial and central nervous system (CNS). Moreover, such involvement may or may not include ocular and auditory damage. Approximately 90% of infants with congenital infection are asymptomatic at birth. Preterm infants with perinatal CMV infection can have symptomatic diseases such as pneumonia, hepatitis, and thrombocytopenia. Microcephaly and abnormal neuroradiologic imaging are associated with a poor prognosis. Hearing loss may occur in both symptomatic and asymptomatic infants with congenital infection and may progress through childhood. Congenital infection is defined by the isolation of CMV from infants within the first 3 weeks of life. Ganciclovir therapy can be considered for infants with symptomatic congenital CMV infection involving the CNS. Pregnant women of seronegative state should be counseled on the importance of good hand washing and other control measures to prevent CMV infection. Heat treatment of infected breast milk at 72?#608;for 5 seconds can eliminate CMV completely

Prevalence of Serum Antibodies to TORCH Infections among the Women of Child Bearing Age Visiting National Public Health Laboratory, Teku

“…CMV infections were mostly inapparant, the virus could cause wide range of diseases in neonates (Kim 2010). The present study showed CMV IgM seropositive rate of 19.23% in the pregnant women.…”

Cytomegalovirus Infection in Infantile Hepatitis

“…Congenital CMV infection is diagnosed when the virus is isolated in infants within the first 2 weeks of life [5,21]. Therefore, it is difficult to differentiate perinatal infection from congenital infection in infants more than 2 weeks of age, unless clinical features of the former such as chorioretinitis, hearing loss, intracranial calcification, and microcephaly are present [21,22]. Since negative IgG anti-CMV indicates the absence of congenital infection, and all IgG anti-CMV tests performed in this study were positive, we were unable to distinguish perinatal infection from congenital infection.…”

Infección congénita por citomegalovirus: presentación de tres casos y revisión de la literatura

“…El diagnóstico de infección fetal debe realizarse con amniocentesis a partir de la semana 21-23 de gestación, y por lo menos 7 semanas después de haberse documentado infección materna primaria (15)(16)(17); el cultivo viral del líquido amniótico tiene una especificidad del 100%, pero tiene sensibilidad variable y el reporte se demora hasta 3 semanas; por estas razones el método de elección debe ser la PCR, que tiene una alta sensibilidad (90-98%) y especificidad (92-98%). Además, se ha encontrado una correlación de la presentación con manifestaciones clínicas con cargas virales de 105 copias por ml (18)(19)(20).…”

“…Las búsqueda de infección congénita por CMV se recomienda también en hijos de madres VIH positivas, y en aquellos recién nacidos pretérmino (< 32 semanas o con peso < 1500 g) (9). Los signos más frecuentes en el recién nacido son: petequias, trombocitopenia, hepatoesplenomegalia, ictericia, RCIU, microcefalia, calcificaciones intracraneales, manifestaciones a nivel neurológico, convulsiones, coriorretinitis, hipotonía, alteración en la succión y de una manera lentamente progresiva, pérdida auditiva neurosensorial y retardo mental, estos últimos más evidentes en la edad escolar (13,17).…”