Clinical Relevance of High HHV-6B Viral Load in Immunocompromised Host

Elena  Kishkurno; Tamara  Amvrosieva; Evgeniy  Dmitriev; Katerina  Divakova

doi:10.18502/igj.v8i4.20103

Elena Kishkurno Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases with Advanced Training Courses and Retraining, Belarusian State Medical University, Minsk, Belarus
Tamara Amvrosieva State Institution «Republican Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Public Health», Minsk, Belarus
Evgeniy Dmitriev Republican Center of the Pathology of Gemostasis, Belarusian Research Center for Pediatric Oncology, Hematology and Immunology, Minsk, Belarus
Katerina Divakova Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases with Advanced Training Courses and Retraining, Belarusian State Medical University, Minsk, Belarus

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/igj.v8i4.20103

Keywords: Antiviral Therapy; ciHHV-6; HHV-6; Infection

Abstract

The peculiarity of the chromosomally integrated form of human herpesvirus type 6 (ciHHV-6) is its wide distribution (up to 1% of the population), the possibility of transmission by inheritance, the problem of diagnosis, including issues of differential diagnosis with the acute form of HHV-6 infection, which, in turn, makes it difficult to resolve the problem of the therapy necessity. In addition, activation of ciHHV-6 is possible sometimes with acute infection clinical symptoms and the need for antiviral therapy, especially in patients after bone marrow transplantation and chemotherapy. We report a 10-years-old girl after chias- mal-sellar germinoma surgery and subsequent chemotherapy with ciHHV-6B. The child was treated with ganciclovir. This did not significantly influence the reduction of the viral load HHV-6B DNA in serum and cerebrospinal fluid. No adverse effects of antiviral treatment were registered. It’s important to exclude ciH- HV-6 before the diagnosis of HHV-6 active disease is made, as this screening may prevent the unnecessary use of antivirals.