• Burcu Ozdemir, Ali Atay, Meral Akdogan Kayhan, Yasemin Ozderin Ozin, Dilara Turan Gokce, Adalet Altunsoy, and Rahmet Guner.
• Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology Clinic, Ankara City Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2023 Aug 4; 102 (31): e34463e34463.

AbstractCytomegalovirus (CMV) is an opportunistic pathogen that exacerbates inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). There are no clear diagnostic criteria for CMV infection in IBD patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the importance of the diagnosis of CMV infection with CMV-DNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in the colonic mucosa and the response to antiviral treatment. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 30 patients with IBD (24 men, 6 women; median age: 42 years) who were hospitalized because of IBD exacerbation and whose samples were assessed by tissue CMV-DNA PCR positivity. Most of the IBD patients had ulcerative colitis (90%). The CMV-DNA PCR median value was 8848 copies/mL of tissue (range 90-242,936 copies/mL). Blood CMV-DNA PCR was found to be positive in a small group (33.3%, 10/30) of tissue CMV-DNA PCR-positive cases. immunohistochemistry tests were positive in only 5 of the 23 patients positive for CMV-DNA PCR in the colonic mucosa, and high remission (25/30, 83.3%) was detected with antiviral therapy. Recurrence of CMV colitis infection was observed in 9 of 25 patients who had remission with antiviral therapy. The tissue CMV-DNA PCR test was found to be more useful than blood CMV-DNA PCR and immunohistochemistry tests for diagnosing CMV colitis, and the tissue CMV-DNA PCR test enabled rapid and appropriate treatment.Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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