The study was aimed to investigate the pp65
antigen of human cytomegalovirus (CMV) and its clinical significance in patients revived allogeneic
hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). 104 patients received allogeneic HSCT were studied.
Anticoagulant blood samples were obtained from the recipients before and after
transplantation and in the
convalescence.
CMV pp65 antigen in leukocytes was detected by indirect immunofluorescence assay using CMV Brite Kit weekly. The results showed that among the 104 patients, 29 cases were CMV pp65 positive (27.88%). Out of 29 cases 16 were CMV antigenemia and 13 cases were CMV disease. There were 25 cases who positively responded to
antiviral therapy (effective ratio 86.21%) and 4 cases died (case-fatality ratio 13.79%). The detection revealed a significant difference in the incidence of CMV
infection between the patients received unrelated or haploidentical family donor HSCT (39.29%) and HLA-identical sibling donor HSCT (14.58%) (P < 0.05). The incidence rate of CMV
infection in patients with 0-I grade aGVHD and patients with II-IV grade aGVHD were 19.44% and 46.88% respectively, which had significant difference (P < 0.05). There was significant difference in the occurrence of aGVHD between the patients with and without positive CMV pp65 (P < 0.05). It is concluded that
infection of CMV can be detected by the CMV pp65 monoclonal fluorescence immunohistochemistry, The detection of
CMV pp65 antigen in peripheral blood leukocytes as a
indicator for CMV disease surveillance after HSCT, which may be used to early diagnose the CMV
infection, to guide the
antiviral treatment and evaluate its efficacy.