Cytomegalovirus Reactivation in Ulcerative Colitis Patients

Table 1

Summary of diagnostic techniques and its characteristics for CMV infection.

Diagnostic tests	Pros	Cons	Sensitivity	Specificity
Serum serology	Can detect evidence of prior infection	Unable to detect active colitis	98%–100% [27, 28]	96%–99%; [27, 28]
Antigen testing	Reasonable sensitivity and specificity for active disease	Semiquantitative, results subjective	60%–100% [29–31]	83%–100% [29–31]
Culture	High specificity	Poor sensitivity; long incubation;	45%–78% [30, 32]	89%–100% [27, 30]
DNA PCR (Serum)	High negative predictive value, may correlate with active disease	Different assays and quantitation methods; low specificity	65%–100%; [29, 30, 33]	40%–92%; [30, 33, 34]
Histologic H&E stain	Inexpensive stain	Poor sensitivity	10%–87%; [35]	92%–100%; [35]
Histologic IHC staining	Improves sensitivity over H&E staining	Expensive stain	78%–93% [35]	92%–100% [35]