Urine qRT-PCR assay as a screening tool for the detection ofcongenital human cytomegalovirus infection of infants

Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is the most common infectious cause of birth defects. It maycause both, immediate and long term health problems in infants. These include variety of symptoms, suchas hearing loss, microcephaly, jaundice, hepatosplenomegaly and seizures. In more severe cases CMVinfection can cause the death of an unborn baby and loss of pregnancy. Despite being one of the mostextensively studied vertically transmitted infections recently, the adverse effects of vertically transmittedCMV infection are still not well presented to the general public, resulting in a low awareness amongpotential expectant mothers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This study aims to elucidate the sensitivity of urinesamples for CMV detection in infants as well as to reflect the importance of quantitative real-time PCR(qRT-PCR) in diagnostics of CMV infection in infants. qRT-PCR was used in this study as a technique forthe screening of CMV DNA in a cohort of patients based in Sarajevo Canton. These results have shownthat urine samples are sufficiently sensitive for the detection of CMV DNA in infants. Furthermore, thesimultaneous analysis of several patients has shown a higher number of CMV DNA copies amplified inurine compared to blood samples, derived from the same patient, thus proposing urine as a reliable sampleof choice for congenital CMV diagnostics. These findings may propose a need to classify qRT-PCR CMVtest among one of the recommended first-trimester pregnancy screening tests, which could help in earlydetection of CMV infection in Sarajevo Canton.