Quantification of Adenovirus in the Lower Respiratory Tract of Patients without Clinical Adenovirus-Related Respiratory Disease

Abstract

Adenovirus in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples from 50 patients without adenovirus-related illness was quantified. In 49 patients, adenovirus was found (median load, 3.3 × 10³ copies/µg of DNA). The adenovirus load was inversely related to lymphocyte count (Pearson correlation coefficient r = −0.311; P = .03) and was significantly greater in immunosuppressed patients than in immunocompetent patients (5.1 × 10³ vs. 2.0 × 10³ copies/µg of DNA; P = .028).