Histological study of congenital and acquired cytomegalovirus infection.

Of 180 autopsied cases in children, of which 85 infants were less than one month of age, seven cases of cytomegalovirus infection are described here. Two patients died of congenital cytomegalovirus infection with generalized cytomegalic inclusion disease and one of them was associated with leukemoid mononucleosis. Five cases, 2.8 per cent of 180 cases, were acquired cytomegalovirus infection with localized lesions of cytomegalic cells in the lungs, incidentally found at postmortem examination. The youngest case of acquired cytomegalovirus infection was one month of age. These spontaneous pulmonary infectious changes early in life, associated occasionally with cytomegalic cells in the vascular wall, may suggest that the lung is one of the initial sites of the acquired cytomegalovirus infection preceeding viruria or elevation of antibody titer at later period of life.