Prospective study of impact of congenital cytomegalovirus infection on hearing

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Although many reports of congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and its complications have been published, few have the strengths of the study reported by Foulon et al in this issue of The Journal. The study is prospective, performed over one decade at a single institution in Belgium, in which 14 000 newborns (representing approximately 80% of deliveries) were screened by urine culture, and infants infected with CMV were followed using valid and sensitive methods to detect impact of infection. Incidence of congenital CMV infection of 0.53%, incidence of sensorineural hearing loss in children infected asymptomatically of 21%, and associations of outcomes with timing of maternal infection are important benchmarks.