Real-world effectiveness of preemptive therapy (PET) for cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease prevention in CMV high-risk donor seropositive/recipient seronegative (D+R-) liver transplant recipients (LTxR).

BACKGROUND: Despite superiority of preemptive therapy (PET) compared to universal prophylaxis for prevention of cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in the CAPSIL randomized trial among CMV D+R- liver transplant recipients (LTxRs), real-world effectiveness may be lower because of logistical concerns about feasibility of PET.

METHODS: We retrospectively assessed PET as standard clinical care at a single transplant center among 50 consecutive adult CMV D+R- LTxRs undergoing a first liver transplant between 4/4/2019 and 5/18/2021 and compared outcomes and adherence to those randomized to PET in the CAPSIL study (N = 100). The primary outcome was CMV disease and secondary outcomes were biopsy-confirmed acute allograft rejection, retransplant, invasive fungal infections, and death, all assessed by 1-year post-transplant. Exploratory outcomes included virologic parameters and measures of adherence to protocol-specified CMV qPCR monitoring.

RESULTS: Baseline characteristics were similar between groups. The cumulative incidence of CMV disease at 1-year post-transplant was 4/50 (8%) versus 9/100 (9%) in the real-world and CAPSIL cohorts, respectively, p = 1.0. The rate of breakthrough CMV disease during the 100-day PET period was low (2/50 [4%]) and similar to the PET cohort from the CAPSIL study (3/100 [3%]).  All secondary and exploratory outcomes were not significantly different between the real-world and CAPSIL PET cohorts.

CONCLUSIONS: In this first reported study of real-world PET, the feasibility and effectiveness for CMV disease prevention and for other clinical outcomes in CMV D+R- LTxRs were similar to those reported with PET in a clinical trial. Additional studies to confirm feasibility and generalizability in other settings are warranted.