Abstract:

Objective To analyze the roles of different specimen types for human cytomegalovirus（HCMV）nucleic acid testing. Methods Specimens such as breast milk，amniotic fluid，morning urine，sputum，serum and cerebrospinal fluid from suspected HCMV-infected or breast milk HCMV-DNA positive infants at Qinghai Red Cross Hospital from 2022 to 2023 were collected. Fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction（PCR）was used，and the differences in HCMV positive rates among different specimen types were compared. Results Among all the specimen types，the HCMV determination rate in breast milk was the highest（67.93%）. The HCMV positive rates of urine，sputum，serum and cerebrospinal fluid of the corresponding breast milk HCMV-DNA positive infants were 16.92%，12.50%，2.64% and 0.12%，respectively（P<0.001）. There was no statistical significance in HCMV positive rates among infants with different genders and for different specimen types（P>0.05）. There were 115 cases of HCMV-DNA positive in the serum（21 cases），cerebrospinal fluid（1 case），sputum（20 cases）and urine（73 cases）of ≤30 d infants. Conclusions Using qPCR to determine HCMV-DNA amniotic fluid can provide a reference for early diagnosis of intrauterine infection to prevent neonatal infection.

Key words: Human cytomegalovirus, Breast milk, Amniotic fluid, Nucleic acid testing, Infant