Targeted Screening for Congenital Cytomegalovirus in the Newborn Hearing Screening Program: A Population-Based Cohort Study.

AIM: To diagnose newborn infants with congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) related sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) within the critical four-week window for initiating antiviral treatment, we aimed to determine the number needed to test (NNT) for cCMV among newborn infants failing the neonatal hearing screening.

METHOD: A population-based multicenter cohort study included newborn infants in East Denmark who failed two hearing screening tests and underwent saliva CMV screening between November 2021 and May 2024. The NNT was calculated as the inverse of the absolute detection rate of cCMV-related SNHL in this cohort.

RESULTS

A total of 484 infants with hearing screening failure were tested for cCMV. Of these, 27 (5.6%) were CMV positive in saliva and 7 (1.5%) were confirmed to have cCMV in urine, blood, or dried blood spots. Six (85.7%) of 7 infants with cCMV and initial hearing screening failure had normal hearing at follow-up, leaving 1 (0.2%) of 484 with cCMV-related SNHL and an NNT of 484 (95% CI 87-20 000).

CONCLUSION

In our setting, targeted screening for cCMV resulted in a high NNT of almost 500 to identify one newborn infant with cCMV-related SNHL, reflecting a low incidence of cCMV-related SNHL and a high risk of false-positive hearing screening.