Texas, Teenagers, and CMV

Utilizing a commercially available ELISA (Cytomegelisa) Whittaker M.A. Bioproducts, Walkersville, Md), the authors conducted a seroepidemiologic study of 191 teenagers in Texas during 1982-1984. One hundred eight teenagers were military dependents from families of officers and enlisted men in El Paso, 25 were from middle-income families from Houston, and 58 were from families in the lower-socioeconomic population of Houston. Overall, 41% of these teenagers were CMV seropositive: 20% of the boys and 48% of the girls. Teenagers from families of lower-socioeconomic status were more likely to be CMV seropositive than were teenagers from middle income families (P < .001 by chi super(2) analysis; table 1). These data are in agreement with those of previous studies in teenagers from various parts of the world, where socioeconomic status has been found to be an important factor influencing the prevalence of IgG antibody to CMV.