Effect of cytomegalovirus infection on infant weight growth and correlation between the weight growth and copies number of the virus

Objective To investigate the effect of cytomegalovirus(HCMV) infection on infant bodyquality growth,and analysis of the correlation between children of all ages body-quality growth rate and copy number of the virus.Methods One hundred and sixty-eight children with HCMV infection were enrolled in the current study who were hospitalized from Oct.2012 to Oct 2013 in the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical College.Children's urine HCMV-DNA copy number was measured by TaqMan probe fluorescence quantitative PCR.The retrospective study was conducted to compare the HCMV infection in children with weight-for-age and normal children.The correlation between children with body-quality growth rate and copy number of the virus was analyzed.Results All 168 urine specimens were positive regarding HCMV-DNA.The age of all distribution was from 1 month to 3 years.There was a negative correlation between the increase body weigh and the copies of virus of children with 3-6 months (r =-0.774,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusion The growth and development of children with HCMV at age before 6 months were slower than Children with the same age.The growth of cytomegalovirus infection increase gradually speeding when they were over 6 months and it was approaching to that same age when they are 2 years old.The growth rate is lower than that of normal children when HCMV children were before 1 years old.The correlation of body-quality growth rate and the number of copies of the virus was negative,especially from 3 months to 6 months. Key words: Cytomegalovirus ;  Infection;  Body quality;  Children