The Benefits of Extended Screening Testing for congenital CMV - BEST 2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Benefits of Extended Screening Testing for congenital CMV – Enhancing Clinical Integration with the Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (Sparks BEST 2)
IRAS ID
111985
Contact name
Mike Sharland
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
St George's, University of London
Research summary
Congenital CMV (cCMV) is the most common non-genetic cause of sensorineural hearing (SNHL) loss and the only potentially treatable cause. Two-thirds of all hearing loss attributable to CMV occurs in the 90% of infected babies who have no symptoms at birth. CMV related hearing loss affects one ear or both but can cause severe progressive hearing loss. Antiviral treatment prevents further hearing loss and improves developmental outcomes if started within the first month of life. There is currently no screening process in place that enables early detection of the virus, but this can be done with a simple mouth swab. The great majority of babies with no clinical features of cCMV are missed so the infection is only detected in early childhood when SNHL may be profound. The BEST study, highlighted that over 95% of parents thought screening for CMV at the point their newborn “failed“ their initial hearing test was beneficial and did not heighten parental anxiety. The BEST study only recruited over 50% of all eligible babies due to the inherent problems with postal recruitment. BEST 2 proposes to recruit over 90% of eligible babies by training newborn hearing screeners to take saliva samples for CMV at the point a newborn “fails” their initial hearing test.
REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/0824
Date of REC Opinion
19 Jun 2013
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion