Depression of host defence mechanisms can be related to old age, underlying debilitating
disease, and malnutrition. In recent years the use of immunosuppressive drugs, such as
corticosteroids, antimetabolites, and alkylating agents have been attributed to acquired
immune deficiency states. This problem is particularly important in patients receiving
organ transplants who are maintained on immunosuppressive drugs for long periods of
time. In these individuals, opportunistic infections with such uncommon low virulence
agents as fungi, cytomegalovirus and pneumocystis carinii have induced fatal disease.
Cytomegalic inclusion disease(CID) is encountered mainly in infancy and early
childhood, particulary in prematures, who have not yet developed any immunologic
resistance, and rarely in vulnerable adults. This viral infection caused by the DNA
cytomegalovirus is characterized by the appearance of large(15 microns in diameter)
intranuclear and smaller intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies in strikingly enlarged cells (40
microns in diameter) of many viscer. The intranuclear inclusion is characteristically
surrounded by a clear halo demarcating it from the nuclear membrane.
In this report two cases of CID are described. The first case developed in the course
of costeroid theraphy for the generalized exfoliative dermatitis, and the second case is
that of a malnourished infant, who was associated with pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.
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