The role of maternal screening in diagnosing congenital cytomegalovirus infections in highly immune populations.

BACKGROUND

Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is the most important infectious cause of central nervous system disease and hearing loss in children.

AIMS: In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of maternal screening in early diagnosis of congenital infection in highly immune populations.

METHODS

A total of 163 women were included in the study; 103 of the subjects were pregnant and were at full term. The other 60 women were not pregnant, and all were healthy.

RESULTS

CMV IgG seropositivity among the pregnant and control groups was found to be 98.1% (101/103) and 98.3% (59/60), respectively, and high IgG avidity was found in all women who had IgG positivity. We did not find any primary CMV infection in the two groups. The recurrent infection rate was found to be 5.82% in the pregnant group and 3.33% in the control group. There were no significant differences between the pregnant and control women in terms of CMV excretion in urine samples (4.85 vs. 3.33%, respectively; P = 1.000) or CMV-DNA presence in serum samples (1.94 vs. 0.0%, respectively; P = 0.532). The presence of symptomatic infection was not observed in any of the 104 babies born from the 103 pregnancies.

CONCLUSIONS

According to our results, a maternal screening-based approach would be useful for only a very small group that is at risk of primary infection. Considering the cost of the scan, a routine maternal-based screening program is unadvisable in developing societies, but it is necessary for studies of different cohort groups and infectious diseases.