Quantitation of human cytomegalovirus DNA in peripheral blood leukocytes of heart transplant recipients: relationship with pp65 antigenernia and with antiviral therapy  Valeria Ghisetti, Anna Barbui, Fabrizia Pittaluga, Enrico Donegani, Marco Bobbio, Michele di Summa, Giovanna Marchiaro  Clinical Microbiology and Infection  Volume 5, Issue 1, Pages 23-31 (January 1999) DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-0691.1999.tb00094.x Copyright © 1999 European Society of Clinical Infectious Diseases Terms and Conditions

Figure 1 Graphical description of two HCMV symptomatic infections in two D+/R- patients: (a) patient 9 of Table 2; (b) patient 10 of Table 2. The two recipients relapsed after the first 21-day ganciclovir (GCV) course, which was discontinued because antigenemia dropped by >90% of pretreatment values (55 and 35 pp65-positive PMNLs, respectively). As can be seen, in the period in which antiviral therapy was not administered (15 days in patient 9, and 12 days in patient 10), HCMV DNA peaks were persistently positive, while antigenemia was slowly increasing after an apparent 90% reduction. The second antiviral course was administered when antigenemia reached 1000 (patient 9) and 270 (patient 10) pp65 PMNLs/200000. Clinical Microbiology and Infection 1999 5, 23-31DOI: (10.1111/j.1469-0691.1999.tb00094.x) Copyright © 1999 European Society of Clinical Infectious Diseases Terms and Conditions