What is it about?
Primary CMV infection in immunocompetent hosts is usually self-limited. Rarely, it is a cause of serious disease with high mortality. We present a 40-year old female with a history of splenectomy and homozygous β-thalassemia who suffered a long period of fever and constitutional symptoms complicated by CMV pneumonia, retinitis and liver enzyme abnormalities, despite the fact that splenectomized β-thalassemia major patients are not considered traditionally immunosuppressed, and subsequently susceptible to serious primary CMV infection. The need of early diagnosis and introduction of appropriate treatment, in the absence of certain guidelines, and the possible immune defects in splenectomized, transfusion-dependent β-thalassemia major patients is discussed, along with a review of the very few reported relevant cases.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Therefore, we could possibly revise our knowledge about risk assessment of splenectomized individuals with β-thalassemia. Besides their serious risk of certain bacterial infection, they might be also in a risk of life-threatening primary CMV infection.
Perspectives
Splenectomy in addition to multiple blood transfusions with subsequent iron overload and secondary haemochromatosis, might play a crucial role in such patients not only making then susceptible in encapsulated microbes, but also several visuses that use spleen as a tagret-organ, comprising CMV and probably more herpes-virus.
George D Liatsos
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cytomegalovirus infection in a splenectomized with β
-thalassemia major: immunocompetent or immunosuppressed?, Clinical Case Reports, May 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/ccr3.1001.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
