Background: In addition to earlier reports on the association between viral infections and intrahepatic neonatal cholestasis, in recent studies, investigators have suggested a similar link to extrahepatic biliary atresia.
Methods: Fifty-nine cholestatic infants (mean age 8 weeks) were investigated for signs of infection with a large spectrum of viruses. Twenty-one infants had extrahepatic biliary atresia, 38 had intrahepatic cholestasis. The virologic methods included serologic investigation in 59 infants and 54 mothers, virus isolation from stools (49 infants), urine (58 infants) and liver biopsies (40 infants). Polymerase chain reaction was used to detect cytomegalovirus DNA in 25 of the liver biopsy specimens. Two control groups, one with 35 noncholestatic infants and one with 111 healthy, pregnant women were checked for serologic signs of cytomegalovirus.
Results: Nineteen of 59 (32%) cholestatic infants, including 8 of 21 (38%) with extrahepatic biliary atresia, compared with 2 of 35 (6%) control infants had cytomegalovirus-immunoglobulin (Ig) M detected in serum (p < 0.01). Fifty-one of 54 (94%) tested mothers of cholestatic infants were seropositive for cytomegalovirus, compared with 83 of 111 (75%) control mothers (p < 0.01). Cytomegalovirus DNA in liver specimens was detected by polymerase chain reaction in 9 of 18 (50%) analyzed patients with biliary atresia and in specimens from 3 of 7 patients with intrahepatic cholestasis.
Conclusions: Cytomegalovirus infection may play a role, not only in intrahepatic neonatal cholestasis, as was suggested earlier, but also in extrahepatic biliary atresia. The pathogenetic mechanism for this link remains to be established.