The polyomaviruses are widely prevalent in nature. Three species -- BK virus (BKV), JC virus (JCV), and a simian virus 40 (SV40) -- infect humans. JCV was first cultured in 1971 from the brain of a patient with progressive multifocal encephalopathy. BKV was discovered in the same year in a renal transplant recipient who developed ureteric stenosis. Polyomavirus infection has become an increasingly important complication of renal transplantation and has begun to be reported after other types of solid organ transplantation.
It is no surprise, then, that a number of questions about polyomavirus have been submitted from readers to the Medscape Transplantation Ask the Experts panel during the past couple of years. Selected questions and the expert responses from Parmjeet Randhawa, MD (Figure 1), Shimon Kusne, MD (Figure 2), and Ron Shapiro, MD (Figure 3) are listed below.
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Figure 1. Parmjeet Randhawa, MD, Associate Professor of Pathology and Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.. |
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Figure 2. Shimon Kusne, MD, Division of Infectious Diseases, Mayo Clinic Hospital, Phoenix, Arizona.. |
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Figure 3. Ron Shapiro, MD, Professor, Department of Surgery, and Director, Renal Transplantation, Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.. |
Ask the Experts, one of Medscape Transplantation's most popular features, is accessible via the Medscape Transplantation home page ($$www$$/transplantationhome) to anyone registered as a physician by scrolling about three quarters of the way down the right side of the page to the blue bar labeled "Discussions." Once there, click on recent questions featured in the box below or click on the "More" button, which will take you to a Directory Page where you will find questions listed and categorized into 8 topics. More than 300 questions have been posted.
If you haven't taken advantage of this service, click on one of the Transplantation Ask the Experts Topics, click on "Submit a Question" in the blue box to the right, and send me your questions on polyomavirus or any other clinical management aspect of transplantation.