VALGANCYCLOVIR AND CMV

Valganciclovir for treatment of symptomatic congenital CMV infections (April 2015)

Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a leading cause of hearing loss in children and can cause other serious long-term neurodevelopmental disabilities. An earlier study found that in infants with congenital CMV involving the central nervous system (CNS), six weeks of ganciclovir was associated with improved audiologic outcomes. Subsequent studies found that valganciclovir (the orally available prodrug of ganciclovir) achieved similar clinical effectiveness. A recent multicenter randomized controlled trial compared six months with six weeks of valganciclovir therapy in infants with symptomatic congenital CMV (including infants without neurologic involvement) [12]. Infants who received six months of therapy had improved hearing and language development at 24 months compared with those who received six weeks of therapy. Based on these findings we now treat all infants with symptomatic congenital CMV infection (not just those with isolated CNS infection) with six months of antiviral therapy