US Pharm. 2017;42(1):12.
San Francisco, CA—New University of California research suggests that newborns with congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) may be at increased risk for developing acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). When scientists screened bone marrow samples from 127 children with ALL for known infections, they detected CMV DNA in these samples; they also looked for CMV in neonatal blood samples from 268 children who later developed ALL. Children who developed ALL were 3.7 times more likely to be CMV-positive at birth. The risk was even greater (5.9-fold) in Hispanic children. Infection has long been suspected to be involved in childhood ALL, but this is the first time that ALL has been traced to a specific virus.
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