Rapid diagnosis of cytomegalovirus lung infection by DNA amplification in bronchoalveolar lavages.

We used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect cytomegalovirus (CMV) deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the bronchoalveolar lavages (BAL) of 16 CMV-infected patients with active disease. We also tested PCR on a control group of 20 patients including latently infected patients without evidence of active CMV infection. Results were compared with those of CMV culture and of a rapid method of diagnosis which detects CMV in BAL cells by nucleic acid hybridization. PCR allowed the diagnosis in 93% of the actively infected patients compared to 73% for the CMV culture. Among the 20 control patients without evidence of active CMV infection, PCR was negative in all the 24 BAL tested. Hybridization on BAL cells with the CMV probe detected nine out of 10 actively infected patients, but the specificity of the test was only 68.5%. In our experience, PCR appears to be at least as sensitive as CMV culture, it provides results faster and it performs better than the detection of the virus by hybridization on BAL cells. Only active CMV infection was detected with the PCR conditions used in our study. This suggests that the PCR can be applied to bronchoalveolar lavage fluids as a rapid method to detect CMV lung infection.