No evidence of Human Cytomegalovirus infection among Behcet\'s Patients

Abstract

Background: Behcet's Disease (BD) is one of the chronic inflammatory diseases with unknown etiology. The relationship between infectious agents and BD has not been clearly identified yet. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) causes a primary infection in the first years of life and remains latent in various tissues and cells. This study aimed to find out the frequency of HCMV among BD patients. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, serum samples from 103 BD patients were analyzed for HCMV by molecular and serological tests. The results were analyzed by IBM SPSS version 20. Results: The mean age of BD patients was 38.67±8.82, and 53% (54/103) were male. The mean duration of BD was 18.42±6.12 years. HCMV IgG antibody was found in 96% and 94% of males and females, respectively, and the IgM antibody was positive only in one male patient. HCMV DNA was not detected in the samples. Conclusion: Our result showed, there is no evidence of Cytomegalovirus infection among Behcet's patients. Like other studies IgG antibodies against CMV are prominent among the general population.and Behcet patients. While, IgM against HCMV was positive only in one patients. But, no CMV-DNA detected among 103 Behcet patients. However, the absence of the virus genome in a positive IgM person can be due to the Short-term DNAemia or due to rheumatoid factor interference. In addition, there is a time lag between primary infection and IgM antibody production (IgM level can remain undetectable because of delayed seroconversion owing to immunosuppressive agents). IgM antibodies can also persist for a long time after infection in some healthy individuals.

Keywords

• behcet's syndrome
• cytomegalovirus
• virus latency