Change in Viral Load during Antiviral Therapy Is Not Useful for the Prediction of Hearing Dysfunction in Symptomatic Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection

Takumi Kido; Yuki Kyono; Shutaro Suga; Ruka Nakasone; Shinya Abe; Mariko Ashina; Hisayuki Matsumoto; Kenji Tanimura; Kandai Nozu; Kazumichi Fujioka

doi:10.3390/jcm10245864

Change in Viral Load during Antiviral Therapy Is Not Useful for the Prediction of Hearing Dysfunction in Symptomatic Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection

J Clin Med. 2021 Dec 14;10(24):5864. doi: 10.3390/jcm10245864.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe 650-0017, Japan.
² Department of Clinical Laboratory, Kobe University Hospital, Kobe 650-0017, Japan.
³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe 650-0017, Japan.

Abstract

For symptomatic congenital cytomegalovirus infections (CCMVI), the usefulness of changes in viral load during valganciclovir (VGCV) treatment for the prediction of hearing dysfunction (HD) is unclear. To determine the utility of viral load change in the whole blood or urine for the prediction of HD, we performed a retrospective study to compare viral load changes during VGCV treatment between CCMVI infants with (n = 12) or without (n = 8) HD at six months of corrected age, whose blood and urine viral loads were measured continuously for eight weeks from April 2009 to December 2019. There was no significant difference in the changes in both the blood and urine viral loads after the initiation of VGCV treatment between CCMVI infants between the groups. Moreover, this negative result was maintained in the analysis for each six weeks or six months treatment period. In conclusion, the change in viral load during antiviral therapy is not useful for the prediction of HD at six months of corrected age in symptomatic CCMVI.

Keywords: antiviral therapy; congenital cytomegalovirus infection; hearing dysfunction; viral load.

Abstract

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