T. MAZZULLI, A. HUMAR, G. MOUSSA, G. SMALL, R. CHUA. Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai and Princess Margaret Hosp. Univ. of Toronto, Canada.

BMT recipients who are CMV seronegative and receive marrow from a CMV seronegative donor and CMV screened blood/blood products are considered to be low risk for the development of CMV infection and disease. As part of a prospective study, we enrolled 39 low risk BMT recipients to undergo weekly monitoring for CMV using the Ag assay and shell vial (SV) and tube culture (TC) of blood during the first 100 days post-transplant. All specimens were processed blinded to the CMV serostatus of the donor and recipient. Of 334 blood samples processed in these 39 BMT patients, all were negative by CMV Ag and culture (SV and TC). 321 urine and 333 throat washings collected simultaneously were also negative for CMV by SV and TC. None of the 39 patients developed clinical CMV infection or disease during the study. In contrast, 42/87 (48%) of BMT recipients at risk for CMV (donor and/or recipient CMV seropositive) had at least one Ag assay positive (19% of specimens tested) and 13 patients developed active CMV disease. These results suggest that the CMV Ag assay is highly specific giving no false positives in low risk BMT patients.

Presented at:

98^th AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MICROBIOLGY (ASM), General Meeting, Atlanta, GA., May 17-21, 1998.