Qualitative and Quantitative PCR Measures of Cytomegalovirus in Patients With Advanced HIV Infection Who Require Transfusions

The Viral Activation Transfusion Study (VATS) was a randomized trial that compared leukocyte-reduced transfusions with unfiltered red blood cell transfusions in HIV and cytomegalovirus (CMV) antibody-positive patients with anemia who were undergoing their first blood transfusion. The relations of the baseline qualitative and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) measures of plasma CMV viremia, HIV RNA, CD4 + cell counts, and quality of life in these study subjects were examined. The 511 study subjects had a median CD4 + cell count equal to 15 cells/mm 3 , and 110 (21.5%) had CMV viremia by qualitative assay. In multivariate models, frequency of positive qualitative CMV increased with decreasing CD4 + cell counts (p =.04 trend), higher HIV RNA (p