ArticlePloS one2022
CMV seropositivity is a potential novel risk factor for severe COVID-19 in non-geriatric patients.
Article in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- CMV seropositivity associates with poor clinical outcome in triple negative breast cancer.iScience · 2026Article
- Review
- Detection of cytomegalovirus in severely ill patients with intractable COVID-19; a retrospective study.BMC public health · 2025Observational
- Age and Latent Cytomegalovirus Infection Do Not Affect the Magnitude of De Novo SARS-CoV-2-Specific CD8European journal of immunology · 2025Article
- Human herpesvirus reactivation and its potential role in the pathogenesis of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.GeroScience · 2025Review
- Impact of CMV latency on T-cell responses to COVID-19 vaccination among predominantly antibody-deficient patients.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Article
- The EPICOVID19-BS study: a web-based epidemiological survey in bariatric patients.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2025Observational
- An epigenetic human cytomegalovirus infection score predicts viremia risk in seropositive lung transplant recipients.Epigenetics · 2024Article
- CMV Retinitis in the Context of SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Case Study and Comprehensive Review of Viral Interactions.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Investigation of Long-Term CD4+ T Cell Receptor Repertoire Changes Following SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Patients with Different Severities of Disease.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Herpesvirus Antibody Response and Occurrence of Symptoms in Acute and Post-Acute COVID-19 Disease.Viruses · 2024Article
- Exploring the relationship between HCMV serostatus and outcomes in COVID-19 sepsis.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Observational
- Cytomegalovirus antibodies are associated with mood disorders, suicide, markers of neuroinflammation, and microglia activation in postmortem brain samples.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Long COVID Complicated by Fatal Cytomegalovirus and Aspergillus Infection of the Lungs: An Autopsy Case Report.Viruses · 2023Article
- Antigen-specific and cross-reactive T cells in protection and disease.Immunological reviews · 2023Review
- Review
- Chronic viral coinfections differentially affect the likelihood of developing long COVID.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2023Article
- Comorbidities, multimorbidity and COVID-19.Nature medicine · 2023Review
- Review
- Coinfection with SARS-CoV-2 and Cytomegalovirus in a Patient with Mild COVID-19.Case reports in infectious diseases · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors at 7 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCOVID-19 has so far affected more than 250 million individuals worldwide, causing more than 5 million deaths. Several risk factors for severe disease have been identified, most of which coincide with advanced age. In younger individuals, severe COVID-19 often occurs in the absence of obvious comorbidities. Guided by the finding of cytomegalovirus (CMV)-specific T cells with some cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 in a COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) patient, we decided to investigate whether CMV seropositivity is associated with severe or critical COVID-19. Herpes simplex virus (HSV) serostatus was investigated as control.
methodsNational German COVID-19 bio-sample and data banks were used to retrospectively analyze the CMV and HSV serostatus of patients who experienced mild (n = 101), moderate (n = 130) or severe to critical (n = 80) disease by IgG serology. We then investigated the relationship between disease severity and herpesvirus serostatus via statistical models.
resultsNon-geriatric patients (< 60 years) with severe COVID-19 were found to have a very high prevalence of CMV-seropositivity, while CMV status distribution in individuals with mild disease was similar to the prevalence in the German population; interestingly, this was not detectable in older patients. Prediction models support the hypothesis that the CMV serostatus, unlike HSV, might be a strong biomarker in identifying younger individuals with a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19, in particular in absence of other co-morbidities.
conclusionsWe identified 'CMV-seropositivity' as a potential novel risk factor for severe COVID-19 in non-geriatric individuals in the studied cohorts. More mechanistic analyses as well as confirmation of similar findings in cohorts representing the currently most relevant SARS-CoV-2 variants should be performed shortly.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.