Clinical Significance of Cytomegalovirus Infection

Abstract

Tissue culture technics have made it possible to detect cytomegalovirus infection in living patients, to determine the frequency of infection, and to gain information bearing on the relationship of chronic infection with these agents to chronic disease. Both the congenital and acquired forms of cytomegalovirus infection are uniquely chronic. Recent studies attest to the potential importance of these viruses as etiologic agents in chronic disease. In most congenitally infected infants the cytomegaloviruses cause mental retardation and cerebral palsy. That the acquired infection can produce significant hepatic damage is suggested by the recent isolation of cytomegalovirus from the urine of children with hepatomegaly and abnormal liver function tests and from the liver of a young woman who died of chronic hepatitis.