Isolation of Cytomegalovirus in an Infant with an Angiosarcoma

Cytomegalic inclusion-body disease occurs in its most characteristic form in the neonatal period as a fulminating disseminated infection in which jaundice, hepatosplenomegaly and haemorrhage associated with severe thrombocytopenia are the typical clinical features. In the older child the disease is very much rarer and the clinical picture is less well defined, but most patients present with predominantly respiratory and gastro-intestinal symptoms that are often superimposed on an underlying debilitating disease (Medearis, 1957). This report concerns a child aged 6 months who developed symptoms characteristic of the neonatal disease, and in whom cytomegalovirus infection was established by virus isolation, and an unusual type of abdominal tumour was discovered at autopsy. The respective roles of these two diseases in causing the clinical and pathological features of her illness raised a number of problems. This appears to be the first reported case in this country of the diagnosis of cytomegalovirus infection during life by virus isolation, and in which the possible source of the infection was traced by a family study.