Causal treatment of congenital cytomegalovirus infection: current achievements and routine practice

The key factor for the effective treatment of infectious diseases is timely causal treatment [1, 2]. However, due to various reasons, the arsenal of etiotropic drugs for the treatment of congenital infections (CIs) has been significantly small [3–6]. At the same time, in the treatment of bacterial CIs (congenital syphilis, congenital listeriosis, congenital Streptococcus agalactiae infection, congenital chlamydiosis, congenital ureaplasmosis, congenitan mycoplasmosis and other), only some of the effective antibiotics are not safe enough for use in newborns. What is more, until recently, there were practically no etiotropic therapies except Aciclovir for the treatment of viral CIs [2–6]. In view of the fact that cytomegalovirus infection (CMV) is the most common viral CI (in the US, it is diagnosed in 1% of all live births), the absence of etiotropic therapies has been particularly critical for the management of congenital CMV infection [2]