Factors influencing Citomeglaovirus infection (CMV) and how to prevent it focused the conference of the researcher at the Institute for Biomedical Research Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre in Madrid, Jose Maria Aguado, in IDIBELL seminar series on 17 February.

CMV is an herpes virus that affects the vast majority of patients with solid organ transplantation. “This infection,” explains researcher “may cause gastrointestinal disease, pneumonia, hepatitis … that can even cause death, although increasingly less so. But they also cause changes in the patient’s immune response that favor the development of other infections, and even acute or chronic rejection of the transplanted organ.”

The solution thus far is an antiviral treatment for all patients which can cause side effects. “Our goal is to tailor treatment to each patient.” They have studied the aspects that can control CMV infection “the type of transplantation, immunosuppression to the patient, the genotype of CMV, the presence of immunogenetic markers … the key point for us is the specific cellular response of leukocytes CD4 and CD8”.

This is the basis of the project that Jose Maria Aguado will start this year, which involves among others, the University Hospital of Bellvitge, which is test “immune-guided therapy depending on the patient response”.