Table 3.

Duration of CMV shedding

Country	Demographics/sampling method	Testing method	Specimen type(s)	Shedding duration
Category I. Congenitally infected children
England [62]	25 congenitally infected infants	Culture	Urine, oral secretions	96% were shedding at 30 months of age
Italy [111]	14 congenitally infected infants	PCR	Blood	1–7 days	8–90 days	91–180 days	> 180 days
				100%	93%	63%	40%
US-New York [112]	20 congenitally infected children	Culture	Urine	100% were still shedding through at least 1 year of age
US-Ohio [113]	15 congenitally infected children	Culture	Urine	73% were still shedding at 4 years of age
Category II. Healthy children enrolled in day care centers
Sweden [68]	13 children in day care centers who were shedding	Culture	Urine	Virus shedding continued throughout follow-up (6 months–1 year)
US-Iowa [67]	79 children in day care centers	Culture	Urine	Mean duration of shedding = 13 months
			Oral secretions	Mean duration of shedding = 7 months
Category III. Healthy children not enrolled in day care centers
Finland [31]	39 hospitalized and outpatient children who were shedding	Culture	Urine	29 children always shed during a mean of 10 months follow-up, 10 children shed intermittently
Japan [88]	17 healthy children who were shedding	Culture	Oral secretions	15 stopped shedding within 12 months; most shed for 3–9 months.
Sweden [90]	27 children who were shedding but who were not infected congenitally	Culture	Urine	Up to 2 years of age, 98% of samples were positive
			Oral secretions	Up to 2 years of age, 84% of samples were positive
US-California [114]	13 infants in ICU who were shedding	Culture	Urine	All infants shed weekly for the duration of their hospital stay or the duration of the study (duration of follow-up not shown)
Category IV. Seroconverters
Austria [115]	48 immunocompetent adult seroconverters	Culture	Serum	Duration of shedding less than approximately 90 days for all (estimated from Figure 1C of [115])
Italy [116]	35 IgM + or indeterminate adults, presumed seroconverters	Culture	Blood	Up to 120 days, shedding prevalence > 50%; after 150 days, shedding prevalence = approximately 33% (estimated from Figure 5 of Ref. [116])
Italy [117]	52 immunocompetent seroconverters (including 40 pregnant women)		Blood	1–30 days	31–60 days	61–90 days	91– 180 days	>180 days
		Culture	(by specimen)	21%	0	0	0	0
			(by patient)	26%	0	0	0	0
		PCR	(by specimen)	100%	81%	39%	17%	0
			(by patient)	100%	89%	47%	27%	0
Italy [111]	32 seroconverting pregnant women	PCR	Blood	4–30 days	31–60 days	61–90 days	91– 180 days	>180 days
				100%	71%	46%	30%	8%
Italy [118]		Culture	Blood	Mean ge/10 μL (estimated from Figure 1 of [118]) for different numbers of days after seroconversion
				20 days		70 days		150 days
	74 seroconverting pregnant women			45 ge		3 ge		0 ge
	16 seroconverting men and 13 seroconverting non-pregnant women			42 ge		2 ge		0 ge
US-Alabama [119]	23 seroconverting post-partum women	Culture	Urine, oral secretions, genital secretions	Median time from seroconversion to shedding = 2 weeks, range = 0–12 weeks. All shed CMV from at least one site at their subsequent visits, with follow-up as long as 3.5 years
US-California [21]	22 seroconverting homosexual men	Culture	Urine	27% shed at some time during follow-up, mean follow-up of 9.3 months
US-Washington [40]	36 seroconverting women seen at an STD clinic	Culture	Urine, genital secretions	Median of shedding = 240 days for 14 women shedding from the cervix only
				Median of shedding = 70 days for four women shedding in urine and cervix
Category V. Adolescents who were shedding CMV
US-Alabama [120]	18 adolescent women who were shedding	Culture	Primarily genital secretions	Over 4 years of follow-up, 17% shed at every visit, 67% shed intermittently, and 17% never shed again
US-Ohio [121]	121 adolescent pregnant women who were shedding	Culture	Urine	In the majority, shedding was intermittent over a period of several months.

CMV, cytomegalovirus; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; ge, genome equivalents.