New vaccines and antiviral drugs for cytomegalovirus

The natural history of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in transplant patients has been well established. This virus may originate from the recipient, the donor or both. When pre-transplant IgG antibodies in the recipient are taken into account, three types of infection are possible: primary, reactivation or reinfection. The risks of high viral load and end-organ disease are highest after primary infection and lowest after reactivation. Serial monitoring of patients by quantitative polymerase chain reaction for CMV DNA allows antiviral drugs to be deployed for pre-emptive therapy or an antiviral drug may be given prophylactically. Both of these strategies are effective, but pre-emptive therapy has the advantage that randomised allocation of a new drug or placebo given prophylactically may show a reduced need for pre-emptive valganciclovir. In this review, I will consider what has been learned from use of ganciclovir and valganciclovir and apply this information to clinical trials that have evaluated maribavir, brincidofovir and letermovir. In addition, pre-emptive therapy has the advantage of facilitating the discovery of vaccines against CMV using a pharmacodynamic approach. Briefly, patients awaiting transplantation are given vaccine or placebo pre-transplant. When they proceed to transplantation, various parameters of viral load can be compared to determine if the vaccine has an effect against CMV when compared to patients randomised to receive placebo. If there is evidence of control of CMV, this can be related to immune responses induced by the vaccine to define a correlate of protection. This review will summarise the published evidence available.