Cytomegalovirus - symptoms, causes and treatment

Cytomegalovirus is a virus that is widely spread all over the world among adults and children, belonging to the group of herpes viruses.Since this virus was discovered relatively recently, in 1956, it is still not well understood, and in the scientific world to this day is the subject of active discussions.

Cytomegalovirus is quite common, antibodies of this virus are found in 10-15% of adolescents and young people. In people aged 35 and over, it is found in 50% of cases. Cytomegalovirus is found in biological tissues - sperm, saliva, urine, tears. When you enter the body, the virus does not disappear, but continues to live with its owner.

What it is?

Cytomegalovirus (another name - CMV infection) is a disease of an infectious nature, which is attributed to the herpesvirus family. This virus affects a person both in utero and in other ways. So, cytomegalovirus can be transmitted by sexual, airborne alimentary way.

How is the virus transmitted?

The ways of transmission of the cytomegalovirus are diverse, since the virus can be found in the blood, saliva, milk, urine, feces, semen, cervical secretion. Possible airborne transmission, transmission with blood transfusions, sexual intercourse, possibly transplacental intrauterine infection. An important place is contamination during childbirth and when breastfeeding a sick mother.

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There are cases when the carrier of the virus does not even suspect about it, especially in those situations when the symptomatology is almost not manifested. Therefore, one should not consider a patient as a patient of a cytomegalovirus, since in the body, he can never manifest himself in his whole life.

However, hypothermia and subsequent decrease in immunity become factors provoking cytomegalovirus. Symptoms of the disease are also manifested due to stress.

Cytomegalovirus igg antibodies are detected - what does this mean?

IgM are antibodies that the immune system begins to produce 4-7 weeks after a person first becomes infected with cytomegalovirus. Antibodies of this type are also produced each time when the cytomegalovirus, left in the human body after the previous infection, begins to actively multiply again.

Accordingly, if you have a positive (increased) titer of antibodies of IgM type against cytomegalovirus, it means:

That you have been infected with cytomegalovirus recently (not earlier than within the last year);
That you have been infected with cytomegalovirus for a long time, but recently this infection began to multiply again in your body.

A positive IgM antibody titer can persist in the blood of a person for at least 4-12 months after infection. Over time, antibodies like IgM disappear from the blood of a person infected with cytomegalovirus.

Development of the disease

The incubation period is 20-60 days, acute during 2-6 weeks after the incubation period. The presence in the body in a latent state both after infection and during periods of fading is unlimited.

Even the field of the course of treatment of the virus in the body lives for life, keeping the risk of relapse, so the safety of pregnancy and full-fledged doctors can not guarantee even with the onset of persistent and prolonged remission.

Symptoms of cytomegalovirus

Many people who are carriers of cytomegalovirus, he does not show any symptoms. Symptoms of cytomegalovirus may appear as a result of disorders in the immune system.

Sometimes, in individuals with normal immunity, this virus causes a so-called mononucleoside-like syndrome. It occurs 20 to 60 days after infection and lasts 2-6 weeks. It appears high fever, chills, coughing, fatigue, malaise and headache. Subsequently, under the influence of the virus, the immune system of the organism is being reconstructed, which is preparing to repel the attack. However, in case of lack of strength, the acute phase goes into a calmer form, when vascular-vegetative disorders are often manifested, and internal organs also suffer.

In this case, three manifestations of the disease are possible:

Generalized form- defeat of CMV internal organs (inflammation of the hepatic tissue, adrenal glands, kidneys, spleen, pancreas). These lesions of the organs can cause bronchitis, pneumonia, which further worsens the condition and exerts a higher pressure on the immune system. In this case, treatment with antibiotics is less effective than with the usual course of bronchitis and / or pneumonia. At the same time, there may be a decrease in platelets in peripheral blood, damage to the walls of the intestine, vessels of the eyeball, brain and nervous system. Externally manifested, in addition to enlarged salivary glands, skin rash.
ARVI - in this case it is weakness, general malaise, headaches, runny nose, enlarged and inflamed salivary glands, fast fatigue, slightly elevated body temperature, whitish coatings on the tongue and gums; Sometimes there may be inflamed tonsils.
Disorders of the urogenital system- manifested in the form of periodic and nonspecific inflammation. At the same time, as in the case of bronchitis and pneumonia, inflammation is not easily treated with traditional antibiotics for a given local disease.

Particular attention should be paid to CMV in the fetus (intrauterine cytomegalovirus infection), in the newborn and young children. An important factor is the gestational period of infection, as well as the fact whether the infection of the pregnant woman first came or occurred reactivation of infection - in the second case the probability of infection of the fetus and the development of severe complications is much lower.

Also, in case of infection of a pregnant woman, fetal pathology is possible, when the fetus becomes infected from the outside of the CMV, which leads to miscarriage (one of the most common causes). It is also possible to activate the latent form of the virus that infects the fetus through the mother's blood. Infection leads to either the death of the child in the womb / after childbirth, or to the defeat of the nervous system and brain, which manifests itself in various psychological and physical diseases.

Infection with cytomegalovirus during pregnancy

When a woman is infected during pregnancy, in most cases she develops an acute form of the disease. Possible damage to the lungs, liver, brain.

The patient notes complaints about:

fatigue, headache, general weakness;
Increase and soreness when touching the salivary glands;
discharge from the nose of a mucous nature;
allocation of the whitish color from the genital tract;
pain in the abdomen (due to the increased tone of the uterus).

When a fetus is infected during pregnancy (but not during childbirth), it is possible to develop a congenital cytomegalovirus infection in a child. The latter leads to severe diseases and lesions of the central nervous system (lag in mental development, deafness). In 20-30% of cases a child dies. Congenital cytomegalovirus infection is observed almost exclusively in children whose mothers during pregnancy are newly infected with cytomegalovirus.

Treatment of cytomegalovirus during pregnancy includes antiviral therapy based on intravenous injection of acyclovir; use of drugs for the correction of immunity (cytotect, immunoglobulin intravenously), as well as conducting control tests after the course of therapy.

Cytomegalovirus in children

Congenital cytomegalovirus infection is diagnosed in a child usually in the first month and has the following possible manifestations:

cramp, trembling of limbs;
drowsiness;
impaired vision;
problems with mental development.

The manifestation is possible and in more adult age, when the child is 3-5 years old, and usually looks like ARI (temperature, sore throat, runny nose).

Diagnostics

Cytomegalovirus is diagnosed using the following methods:

detection of the presence of the virus in body fluids;
PCR (polymerase chain reaction);
seeding on cell culture;
detection of specific antibodies in blood serum.

See also: study of igg antibodies to cytomegalovirus in Invitro.

Effects

With a critical decrease in immunity and inability of the body to produce an adequate immune response, cytomegalovirus infection passes into a generalized form and causes inflammation of many internal organs:

adrenal glands;
hepatic tissue;
pancreas;
kidney;
spleen;
peripheral nervous tissue and central nervous system.

Today, WHO puts the generalized form of cytomegalovirus infection in second place in the number of deaths worldwide after ARI and influenza.

Treatment of cytomegalovirus

In case of activation of the virus, in no case should you do any self-medication - this is simply unacceptable! It is necessary to consult a doctor to prescribe the right therapy, which will contain immunomodulating drugs.

The most common treatment is cytomegalovirus aimed at strengthening the immune system. It includes antiviral and general restorative therapy. Also, antibiotic treatment of concomitant diseases is prescribed. All this allows you to translate the virus into a latent (inactive) form, when its activity is controlled by the human immune system. However, there is no 100% method that would allow forever to eradicate the herpes virus from the body.

For example, according to serological tests, 90.8% of individuals in the 80-year-old and older group are seropositive (i.e., have a positive IgG antibody level).

Prevention

Particular danger of cytomegalovirus is during pregnancy, as it can provoke miscarriage, stillbirth or cause severe congenital malformations in the child.

Therefore, cytomegalovirus, along with herpes, toxoplasmosis and rubella, is one of those infections that women should be screened for prophylactically, even at the stage of pregnancy planning.

To what doctor to address?

Often, the diagnosis of CMV infection is a gynecologist, watching the future mother. If necessary, treatment of the disease shows advice infektsionista. A neonatal child with a congenital infection is treated by a neonatologist, then a pediatrician, observed by a neurologist, an ophthalmologist, an ENT doctor.

In adults, with the activation of CMV infection, it is necessary to consult an immunologist (often one of the signs of AIDS), a pulmonologist and other specialized specialists.