Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a ubiquitous pathogen that establishes a lifelong asymptomatic infection in healthy individuals. Infection of immunosuppressed individuals causes serious illness. Patients with solid organ transplantation, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and AIDS are highly susceptible to CMV infection leading to life threating end organ disease. In addition, in these groups, CMV causes acute and latent infection and also reactivation may occur in immunosuppressed conditions. Another vulnerable population is the developing fetus in utero, where congenital infection can result in surviving newborns with long-term developmental problems. Therefore an accurate and reliable diagnosis of a CMV infection will provide the best and appropriate management of the infection and will decrease the morbidity and mortality of the disease. The most frequently used method for diagnosis of the virus in clinical practice is the serological and molecular exposure of the viral antigens and DNA in the blood, plasma or the affected tissues. The latent and reactivating nature of the infection causes a main problem in the diagnosis of CVM; the evaluation of the laboratory tests is a problem since CMV DNA and CMV antigens might be detected in some patient with no active diseases. Therefore, diagnostic investigations are only of limited use regarding the distinction of CMV infection and disease especially in patients with immune deficiency. For these reasons, the purpose of this study is to develop a test capable of rapidly and correctly diagnosing CMV infections, which are able to detect the active infection and are also able to provide a completely virus focused, correct result as well.

Keywords: CMV infection, diagnostic challenge