Utility of newborn screening cards for detecting CMV infection in cases of stillbirth

BackgroundCMV infection may cause intrauterine deaths including stillbirths (intrauterine deaths at ≥20 weeks gestation). In 2005, there were 1979 stillbirths in Australia, which is almost double the number of deaths reported for all children between 1 and 14 years age.ObjectivesWe evaluated the diagnostic utility of testing for the presence of CMV in newborn blood screening cards (NBSC) collected from stillborn babies, who had no known cause of death after post-mortem.Study designBlood taken at post-mortem by cardiac puncture of 107 stillborn babies between July 2005 and December 2006, was spotted onto NBSC. CMV infection was detected using nested PCR targeting the glycoprotein gene, gp58.ResultsOf the 107 stillborn infants, 10 (9%) were CMV positive. The rate of CMV infection did not differ between early stillbirths (8%) and late stillbirths (9%).ConclusionsThe use of NBSC is a convenient and accurate method for CMV detection in stillbirths. It is easily collected, less laborious than viral culture, diagnostically useful and could be applied for epidemiological and retrospective investigation of the virus in the stillbirth population.