A clinicopathological study on cytomegalovirus infection

Abstract

A clinicopathological study was carried out in 200 autopsied cases experienced in our department from 1981 to 1988. Cytomegalovirus infection was detected in 18 cases (9.0%). Eleven patients were male and 7 were female, and their ages ranged from 21 to 72 with a mean of 58.1 years. Primary diseases were mainly Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (7 cases) and Adult T-cell leukemia (4 cases), and corticosteroid had been administered to all of them. The most commonly involved organ was lung (77.8%), followed by adrenal (55.6%), esophagus, pancreas, ovary (22.2%), stomach, small intestine, thyroid (16.7%), liver, kidney, tongue (11.1%), and so on. Concomitant infections were frequently complicated, which were bacterial pneumonia (5 cases), fungal pneumonia (3 cases), disseminated varicella-zoster infection (2 cases) and herpes simplex virus esophagitis or stomatitis (5 cases), while, ten patients died of cytomegalovirus pneumonia. Cytomegalovirus infection was one of the fatal opportunistic infections in immunocompromised, especially cell-mediated immunity impaired, hosts such as the patients with lymphocytic malignancies.