Prevention of transfusion-associated cytomegalovirus infection in very low-birthweight infants using frozen blood and donors seronegative for cytomegalovirus.

During a 15-month period, 34 low birthweight infants (less than 1300 g) lacking maternal antibody to cytomegalovirus (CMV) received transfusions from an average of 10 donors per infant. Blood products consisted of predominantly washed deglycerolized frozen red cells from donors lacking antibody to CMV (an average of nine seronegative donors per infant). None of these infants acquired CMV infection while hospitalized. The absence of acquired CMV infections in these infants was in marked contrast (p less than 0.001) to the incidence of CMV infections in seronegative low-birthweight infants during the previous 21-month period when 28 percent acquired CMV (7 of 25 infants). The infants in this previous group received transfusions from an average of 11 donors per infant with an average of four seropositive donors per infant. These results confirm that hospital-acquired CMV infections can be prevented for very low-birthweight infants by donor selection and/or blood processing.