THE DIAGNOSIS OF CYTOMEGALOVIRUS INFECTION
IN INFANT WITH PP65 ANTIGENEMIA ASSAY
LI L, X FS, W WF, Y YH
The Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing, China
Objective: To evaluate the pp65 antigenemia assay (AA)
in diagnosis of CMV infection in infants and neonates.
Methods: There were 63 patients being grouped into two groups. Cne
group had 21 patients with typical CMV infection symptoms, the other group
had 42 cases without typical symptoms. All the cases were examined with AA,
PCR and ELISA, and some of them were followed up by short term and
reexamined. Results 1.There were 23 cases of these 63 patients being
diagnosed with CMV infection, 15 cases being symptomatic infection, the
other 8 cases being subclinic infection. The positive value of AA, DNAnemia
and IgM of symptomatic infection group were 93% (14/15)，100%
（15/15）and 80% （12/15）,
for subclinic infection group it was 50% （4/8），75%
（6/8）, 38% (3/8)respectively.
There was no positive result of AA was found in patients without CMV
infection. Compared with PCR, the sensitivity of AA was 86%, the
specificity was 100%. 2. The level of AA of the symptomatic cases was
significantly higher than that of subclinical one （p<0.01）.
The higher AA level (4－206/ 1.5×105 PMNLs ) was correlated with
severe clinical manifestations of CMV infection, while the lower level of
AA (0－3/1.5×105 PMNLs) was either in the patients
in recovering stage or in patients without symptoms.
Conclusions: CMV pp65 antigenemia assay was sensitive, specific.
Quantitative monitoring of CMV AA level was useful in diagnosis and
evaluation of CMV infection of pediatric patients.