CMV virus is a DNA virus belonging to the Herpes family. It is extremely wide-spread and infection is usually asymptomatic in healthy hosts. However, CMV infection in the immunocompromised host and the developing fetus may result in either localized or disseminated disease. Its varied clinical manifestations include pneumonia, retinitis, hepatitis, enteritis, and neurologic disease. Despite improved treatment modalities, CMV infection may result in significant morbidity and mortality in transplant patients, AIDS patients, and cancer patients, particularly those with leukemia or lymphoma.
Patients are at risk from both primary CMV infection and reactivation of latent infection.
The CMV antigenemia assay is a valuable tool in the diagnosis and monitoring of active CMV infection in solid organ and bone marrow transplant patients as well as in the diagnosis and monitoring of CMV disease in AIDS patients. Cell culture of blood or other body fluids. Rapid shell vial culture of body fluids. A major disadvantage of these methods is that therapy may destroy feeder cells and results may take from one day to several weeks. There may be delay in detection of CMV infection since the antibody response appears 10 to 14 days after the start of active CMV infection.