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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, December 2000, p. 4485-4491, Vol. 38, No. 12
Department of Medical Microbiology,
University Hospital Maastricht, 6202 AZ
Maastricht,1 and Department of
Pathology, Free University Hospital, 1081 HV
Amsterdam,3 The Netherlands, and
Department of Virology2 and
Transplantation and Liver Surgery Unit,4
Department of Surgery,4 University
Hospital Helsinki, FIN-00130 Helsinki, Finland
Received 5 May 2000/Returned for modification 15 August
2000/Accepted 21 September 2000
Nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA) was used for
detection of the human cytomegalovirus (CMV) immediate early-1 (IE) and
the late pp67 mRNA in 353 blood samples collected from 34 liver
transplant patients. The diagnostic value of these assays was compared
to that of the pp65 antigenemia assay. Overall, 95 and 42% of the
antigenemia-positive samples were IE NASBA and pp67 NASBA positive,
respectively. Although the results from pp67 NASBA and the antigenemia
assay appeared to correspond poorly, a clear correlation was seen
between pp67 NASBA-negative results and low numbers of pp65
antigen-positive cells. Twenty patients (59%) were treated with
ganciclovir after the diagnosis of symptomatic CMV infection. Before
initiation of the antiviral therapy, the antigenemia assay detected the
onset of symptomatic infection in all patients, whereas 95 and 60%
of these patients were IE NASBA and pp67 NASBA positive, respectively.
Although the sensitivity of IE NASBA was very high, the positive
predictive value (PPV) of this assay for the onset of a symptomatic
infection was only 63%. The PPV of the antigenemia assay as well as
pp67 NASBA was considerably higher (80 and 86%, respectively). Thus,
the detection of IE mRNA using NASBA appears to be
particularly useful as a marker for early initiation of antiviral
therapy in patients at high risk for the development of a symptomatic
infection. Also, IE NASBA was found to be more sensitive than the
antigenemia assay for monitoring CMV infection during antiviral
therapy. On the contrary, pp67 NASBA did not appear to have additional
diagnostic value compared to the antigenemia assay.
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Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Diagnostic Implications of Human Cytomegalovirus Immediate
Early-1 and pp67 mRNA Detection in Whole-Blood Samples from Liver
Transplant Patients Using Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based
Amplification
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Medical Microbiology, University Hospital Maastricht, P. Debyelaan 25, P.O. Box 5800, 6202 AZ Maastricht, The Netherlands. Phone: 31 43 38 76 644. Fax: 31 43 38 76 643. E-mail: mbl{at}lmib.azm.nl.
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