Congenital cytomegalovirus infection

Abstract

### What you need to know Congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection is a common congenital infection, affecting one in every 100-200 live births globally.1 Long term neurodevelopmental sequelae occur in a quarter of children affected. This article provides a clinical update of the literature on the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and anticipatory management of infants and children with cCMV. Recommendations from the 2015 European Society of Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID) Expert Consensus Group (largely based on expert opinion) are presented along with more recent literature relevant to the general practitioner.2 Cytomegalovirus (CMV) can cause self-limited generalised symptoms such as fatigue and lymphadenopathy in most healthy individuals, including pregnant people.3 cCMV infection occurs when CMV transplacentally infects a developing fetus. The virus can cause damage to the placenta, and replicate in fetal central nervous system (CNS) cells, which may result in disrupted fetal development, miscarriage, or intrauterine fetal demise.4 Neonates with cCMV may experience a wide range of signs, symptoms, and long term sequelae (fig 1), although most experience no recognisable signs or symptoms.3 Fig 1 Expected incidence of disease manifestations and developmental outcomes of infants with congenital cytomegalovirus demonstrated in 1000 hypothetical infants born with congenital cytomegalovirus Neonates born with …