CYTOMEGALOVIRUS-INFECTION AMONG CHILDREN WITH BLOOD MALIGNANCIES

Objective: To correlate the virologic and serologic study results of c ytomegalovirus (CMV) with the clinical syndromes among children with h ematological malignancies seen at King Abdulaziz University Hospital ( KAUH) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Patients and methods: A total of 49 chi ldren were studied. The patients were 27 children suffering from diffe rent hematological malignancies. Twenty two children were admitted to the study as controls. Human foreskin fibroblast (HFF) cell culture wa s used for virus isolation. Immunofluorescence assay (IFA) using monoc lonal antibodies (abs) to CMV was performed on all infected cultures. Antibodies (IgM and IgA) to CMV in the sera were detected by an enzyme -linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA) and a Latex Agglutination test (Ig G). Results: All patients showed seropositivity for anti CMV-IgG. Eigh teen patients (67%) with positive anti-CMV IgG showed no evidence of a ctive infection or excretion of CMV. Nine patients (33%) showed seropo sitivity, 2 of them (22%) with exertion of CMV in the urine but with n o evidence of active infection, and the other 7 (78%) patients develop ed active CMV infection presented by excretion of CMV from one or more body sites, elevated or non elevated serum anti-CMV IgG and with or w ithout the presence of anti-CMV IgM. Out of these 9 patients 2 had evi dence of primary infection and the remaining 7 patients had latent CMV reactivation episode. Conclusion: The presence of anti-CMV IgA had no relation neither to the excretion of CMV, nor to the elevated anti-CM V IgG and to positive anti-CMV IgM. There was no CMV active infection in the control subjects evidenced by the absence of excretion of CMV i n the samples, and negative anti-CMV IgM in the serum despite the dete ction of anti-CMV IgG which indicated past exposure to CMV early in ch ildhood.