Cross-sectional study of cytomegalovirus shedding and immunological markers among seropositive children and their mothers

Table 2 Associations between select demographic, viral, and immunological variables

Variable	CMV shedding in saliva and/or urine	P-value	Saliva viral load		P-value^a	Urine viral load		P-value^b	IgG antibody	P-value	Low IgG avidity	P-value	IgG titers^-1(GMT)^c	P-value
Variable	CMV shedding in saliva and/or urine	P-value	Mean	Median	P-value^a	Mean	Median	P-value^b	IgG antibody	P-value	Low IgG avidity	P-value	IgG titers^-1(GMT)^c	P-value
Group
Children	17% (28/161)		1.6 × 10⁷	1.6 × 10⁵		1.1 × 10⁵	9.6 × 10⁴	0.37^d	31% (50/161)		18% (7/40)		224
Mothers	19% (6/32)	0.83	6.1 × 10³	4.9 × 10³	<0.001	-	-	<0.001 ^e	91% (29/32)	^f	10% (3/29)	0.50	464	0.002
CMV IgG avidity (all)
Low	60% (6/10)		1.6 × 10⁶	2.5 × 10⁶		-	-		-		-		136
High or intermediate	39% (23/59)	0.30	4.4 × 10⁴	1.2 × 10⁴	0.02	-	-	NA	-	NA	-	NA	353	0.005
CMV shedders (children only)
No	-		-	-		-	-		19% (25/133)		12% (2/17)		321
Yes	-	NA	-	-	NA	-	-	NA	89% (25/28)	<0.001	23% (5/23)	0.68	290	0.68
Day care attendance (children only)
Never	9% (9/98)		5.9 × 10⁶	3.7 × 10⁵		1.4 × 10⁵	1.1 × 10⁵		27% (26/98)		21% (4/19)		192
Ever	30% (19/64)	<0.001	2.1 × 10⁷	1.6 × 10⁵	0.63	8.9 × 10⁴	6.5 × 10⁴	0.38	38% (24/63)	0.06	14% (3/21)	0.69	258	0.35

^aWilcoxon Rank-Sum test comparing log₁₀ viral loads in saliva.
^bWilcoxon Rank-Sum test comparing log₁₀ viral loads in urine.
^cWilcoxon Rank-Sum test comparing geometric mean titers (GMT).
^dComparison is between Children's saliva and urine.
^eComparison is between Children's urine and mothers' saliva.
^fAntibody prevalences between mothers and children were not directly comparable because the children came from an unselected population whereas the mothers were selected for testing only if their children were CMV-seropositive, and therefore the seroprevalence among mothers was higher than would be expected in a general population.
Dashes are inserted where a comparison does not make sense or is redundant, or where data were insufficient.
P-values comparing proportions are chi-squared or Fisher’s exact test as appropriate; p-values less than 0.05 are highlighted in bold font.
NA, not applicable.

ISSN: 1471-2334