African Journal of Infectious Diseases Research

ISSN 2756-3340

African Journal of Infectious Diseases Research Vol. 2 (2), pp. 065-068, February, 2015.  © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Incidence and clinical effects of Dynamic cytomegalovirus infectious disease in autologous stem cell organism transplant beneficiaries

*Cheng Ziao and Yeng Chan

Department of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.

E-mail: [email protected]

Accepted 09 January, 2015

Abstract 

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in patients after autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) has become a major medical concern. However, few studies have reported active CMV infection before the transplantation. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the incidence, clinical impact, risk factors, and outcome of CMV pp65 antigenemia in 44 consecutive patients who underwent ASCT between January 2005 and June 2011. CMV pp65 antigenemia assay was performed weekly, from 7 days before stem cell infusion until the patient was discharged. All patients were CMV seropositive before ASCT. Pre-transplantation antigenemia was detected in 19 patients (43.2%) and post-transplantation antigenemia in 17 patients (38.6%). Multivariate analysis could not identify any pre-transplantation risk factors for CMV antigenemia. When patients with and without pre-transplantation antigenemia were compared, we found that pre-transplantation active CMV infection had significant effects on post-transplantation platelet and neutrophil recovery, although the time of hospitalization and amount of blood transfusion were similar in both groups. CMV antigenemia was asymptomatic in all cases, and cleared spontaneously in 86.7% of patients who did not receive antiviral treatment. In conclusion, CMV reactivation before ASCT might occur frequently and even an asymptomatic infection could significantly delay engraftment. Therefore, ASCT candidates should be routinely evaluated for active CMV infection.

Key words: Cytomegalovirus, autologous stem cell transplant, CMV pp65 antigenemia, infection.