Screening newborns for congenital cytomegalovirus infection.

摘要

To the Editor: The study by Dr Boppana and colleagues conducted newborn screening for congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and found dried blood spots (DBS) to have a testing sensitivity of 28% to 34%. We believe that the authors' conclusion that DBS PCR assays are not suitable for screening newboms for congenital CMV infection is premature.The low sensitivity may have been due in part to the specific methods used. It may be that neither the M48 robotic system nor the column extraction method used is optimal for detection of low copy number viral DNA in DBS. Demonstration of poor sensitivity with a particular diagnostic test, or even several tests, does not preclude future development of a test with sufficient sensitivity.