Introduction: Cytomegalovirus infections have gained high importance for individuals that have received organ transplants given the clinical implications this may have in immunocompromised patients.
Objective: To describe the seroprevalence of cytomegalovirus in organ donors and recipients of kidney transplants nationwide from the six regions established by the Red Nacional de Donación y Trasplante.
Materials and methods: We conducted a descriptive retrospective study that included 1,813 organ donors and 3,313 recipients of kidney transplants, and we calculated IgM and IgG seroprevalence for cytomegalovirus. IgG prevalence was stratified according to sex, age group, and region, and the results were analyzed in each donor-recipient pair and classified according to the risk. Statistical packages IBM SPSS®, Statistics 22, and Epi Info 7 were utilized.
Results: IgG prevalence for cytomegalivirus was 86.8% in donors and 91.0% in kidney transplant recipients with statistical significance observed for age, geographical location, and between donors and recipients. We analyzed 1,764 pairs of donors and recipients, of which 91.4% were categorized as having intermediate risk.
Conclusions: The results of this study showed high cytomegalovirus infection rates in Colombia. Given the risk, categorization of patients undergoing transplants, measures should be adopted by medical teams to minimize risks.
Keywords: cytomegalovirus; kidney transplantation; prevalence; seroepidemiologic studies; serology; tissue donor.