Abstract

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a common complication in the postoperative course of liver transplantation. In order to start early prophylactic therapy, but to avoid unnecessary treatment, or expensive screening, a desirable goal in post-transplant monitoring is to find appropriate markers in standard laboratory diagnostics. In the present study, the results of a 6-week CMV replication monitoring schedule by the pp65 antigenemia assay in 100 liver graft recipients were included. The activities of transaminases, glutamate dehydrogenase and γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (γ-GT) were measured by routine laboratory methods. In contrast to the transaminases, the serum activity of γ-GT increased during the first postoperative week. The maximum levels were 246 ± 211 U/l in patients without (n= 46) and 140 ± 89 U/l in patients with early CMV replication (n = 54; p = 0.02). Patients with γ-GT levels below 200 U/l on the 5th postoperative day (n = 72) had a CMV replication risk of 65%, whereas those patients with γ-GT levels above this threshold had a risk of 30% (n = 28; p = 0.0007; relative risk = 2.9). These findings provide a routinely usable marker for the identification of patients at an increased risk of CMV replication. It can be considered that these phenomena may be caused by an additional immunosuppressive effect of the CMV virus.