Cytomegalovirus infection in liver transplant recipients.

OBJECTIVE: To explore cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in recipients of liver transplantation (LT). METHODS: 30 recipients of LT were screened for the appearance of CMV infection by using ELISA to test anti-CMV-Ab from serum samples and using immunohistochemistry method to test CMV antigen expression and nested-PCR to amplify CMV-DNA from blood samples. RESULTS: Four of 243 samples taken from 30 recipients came out positive of anti-CMV IgG and anti-CMV IgM with a positive rate of 100% and 1.6% respectively. 85 samples resulted in CMV antigen expression (35.0%) with the average antigen index being 4.2+/-3.1/5 X 10(4) WBC. Besides, 99 samples were found to be positive by nested-PCR with a positive rate of 40.7%. 61 samples were found to be simultaneously positive in test of CMV antigen and DNA, with a rate of 25.1%. CONCLUSIONS: Infection of CMV is common in recipients of LT. Simultaneous screening of anti-CMV-Ab, CMV-Ag and CMV-DNA after liver transplantation is very important for early diagnosis of CMV infection.