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Integrating congenital cytomegalovirus screening within a newborn hearing screening program: Is it worthwhile?
Rachael Beswick1, Lauren McHugh1, Julia E Clark2
1Children's Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service, Queensland, PO Box 930, Nundah, Queensland, 4012, Australia.
Objectives:
The aim of the present study was to review the potential impacts and barriers to upscaling a pilot congenital Cytomegalovirus (cCMV) screening program into a state-wide permanent universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) program.
Design:
This study reviewed the outcomes of the cCMV screening program pilot operating at three maternity hospitals to standard state-wide laboratory notifications in Queensland, Australia between August 2014 to April 2018. Stakeholder interviews were also conducted to inform state-wide program implementation.
Results:
Of the 485 infants tested for CMV on a saliva swab at the pilot sites, 4 (0.8%) returned a positive result. Review of the state-wide laboratory infant CMV PCR notifications for the same time-period revealed more than half of infants with cCMV (63.7%) would not have been detected under a state-wide targeted screening program as they either passed newborn hearing screening, were deceased, symptomatic, or were born <34 weeks gestational age. Barriers to state-wide program implementation included program-level factors (timing of the cCMV screen, funding, cross-agency communication, workforce and training) and community-level factors (low public cCMV awareness and prevalence).
Conclusions:
Although cCMV screening alongside UNHS is achievable, a number of barriers need to be addressed prior to state-wide program implementation.
