Early kinetics of plasma cytomegalovirus DNA load in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients in the era of highly sensitive real-time PCR assays: does it have any clinical value?

We report that in a population of allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients, determination of the viral doubling time (dt) of the cytomegalovirus (CMV) DNA plasma load predicted the eventual need for inception of preemptive antiviral therapy, whereas the level of the initial plasma CMV DNA load did not. The data thus indicated that determination of the dt of CMV DNA may be useful in the therapeutic management of CMV infection in this clinical setting.