Fulminant adenovirus hepatitis following unrelated bone marrow transplantation: failure of intravenous ribavirin therapy.

Fulminant hepatic failure due to adenovirus infection is a rare complication following stem cell transplantation. We report this complication in an unrelated bone marrow transplant recipient 30 weeks post-transplant. Treatment with intravenous ribavirin was started within 36 h of admission, but he succumbed to unusually fulminant hepatic failure. Adenovirus type 2 was isolated from stool surveillance samples and from post-mortem liver samples. Adenovirus DNA was detected by PCR in blood and sputum samples at admission and was identified in post-mortem liver tissue by electron microscopy. Implications of the failure of ribavirin therapy are discussed.