Comparative study between two methods for detecting cytomegalovirus in chronic renal failure patients

This work was- designed to evaluate and compare Human Cytomegalovirus [HCMV] ELISA and Polymerase chain reaction PCR methods for the detection of HCMV in chronic renal failure patients. Also, it aims to correlate HCMV infection with positive clinical history, duration of dialysis, blood transfusion and renal transplantation. The present study was conducted on 66 patients with chronic renal failure, divided into two subgroups [50 non-transplanted on hemodialysis and 16 renal transplanted patients], and twenty apparently healthy volunteers as control group. Both the patients and the controls have been studied for detection of HCMV infection by CMV specific IgG and IgM ELISA assay, and qualitative leukocytes PCR assay. Regarding CMV IgG and IgM were detected in 66 [100%] and 10 [15.1%] patients respectively. The patients' group was found to be positive for CMV IgM and PCR assays in a percentage of 15.1% and 45.4% respectively with statistically significant difference compared to the control group. By PCR, HCMV positivity was significantly increased more frequent among non-transplanted patients with frequent blood transfusion. However, frequent blood transfusion had no influence on the positivity of HCMV in renal transplanted patients. Also, duration of dialysis In non-transplanted patients had insignificant role on the positivity of HCMV. Although the positivity for CMV IgM ELISA was [12%] and [25%] among non-transplanted and transplanted subgroups respectively, the difference was statistically insignificant. Comparing the positivity for PCR which was [42%] and [56.25%] among non-transplanted and transplanted subgroups respectively, the difference was also statistically insignificant. The relative sensitivity and specificity of CMV IgM ELISA assay compared to CMV PCR were 30% and 97.2% respectively. We concluded that leukocytes PCR is a reliable test in screening HCMV infection and it is more valuable than serology in diagnosis of HCMV infection. Also, the determination of IgM antibodies for HCMV is not helpful in identifying patients at risk or in following the course of HCMV disease because antibody response is too slow and it has low sensitivity