[Is serologic screening necessary in the donor bloods for cytomegalovirus seronegative blood transfusion to risky patients?].

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections are commonly seen in humans and are usually mild or asymptomatic. However, these infections have significant medical risks in pregnant women, newborns and immunocompromised patients. Seronegative subjects and infants acquire CMV through infected blood products or direct contact with infected people. The use of seronegative blood products for selected patients, as in newborns and/or immunosuppressed patients has vital importance in medical management. Providing seronegative blood in countries where the prevalence of CMV is high (>90%), is difficult since this requires screening of a great number of blood donations. The aim of this study was to detect the CMV seroprevalence among voluntary blood donors in Kocaeli (located at northwestern region of Turkey) and to determine whether the screening procedure was cost-effective. CMV-IgG was investigated by a commercial ELISA method (AXSYM, Abbott, USA) in 1264 blood donors who were voluntarily admitted to donate blood for newborns between January to December 2006. In 1229 (97.2%) of these donors CMV-IgG was found positive while it was negative in 35 (2.8%). It was estimated that CMV-IgG screening was not cost-effective to provide seronegative blood donations because of the high rate of seropositivity in Kocaeli as well as other regions of Turkey, so it would be more favorable to apply alternative methods such as leukocyte reduction.