Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Sep;31(9):2877-2884.
doi: 10.1007/s43032-024-01551-6. Epub 2024 Apr 17.

Serological Screening of TORCH Pathogen Infections in Infertile Women of Childbearing Age in Northwest China

Xiaoyan Ren  1 , Kaili Wang  1 , Zhenhua Chang  1 , Mengxin Liu  1 , Fang Cheng  1 , Baohua Min  1 , Sanhua Wei  2
Affiliations

Serological Screening of TORCH Pathogen Infections in Infertile Women of Childbearing Age in Northwest China

Xiaoyan Ren et al. Reprod Sci. 2024 Sep.

Abstract

Serological screening for TORCH(Toxoplasma gondii [TOX], Rubella virus [RV], Cytomegalovirus [CMV], and Herpes simplex virus [HSV]) infections is an effective method for preventing congenital infections caused by TORCH pathogens.In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the characteristics of TORCH infections in 17,807 infertile women of childbearing age in northwest China.We conducted serological detection of TORCH-pathogen-specific IgM and IgG antibodies. The seroprevalence of TORCH infections was statistically analyzed by applying χ2 and Fisher exact-probability tests to evaluate the differences among ages and across quarters of the year. The overall IgM/IgG seroprevalences of TOX, RV, CMV, HSV-1, and HSV-2 were 0.46/3.4%, 0.77/84.93%, 0.68/97.54%, 1.2/82.83%, and 0.62/10.04%, respectively. The positive rates for RV-IgM in women ≥ 40 years old were significantly higher than those for women 25-39 (P < 0.05) years of age. The seroprevalence of HSV1-IgM was higher in the third and fourth quarters of the year (seasons) (P < 0.001), and the seroprevalence of CMV-IgG was statistically significant between differences quarters (P = 0.017), and the seroprevalence of CMV-IgG in the first quarter was lower than that in the third and fourth quarters (Bonferroni correction, P = 0.009 > 0.0083), suggesting no statistically significant difference between the latter two groups. This study showed that in northwestern China the risk of acquiring primary infection by a TORCH pathogen among infertile women of childbearing age were still high, especially Toxoplasma gondii and Herpesvirus type 2 infection. Therefore, effective prevention strategies that include serological screening for TORCH should be implemented.

Keywords: Cytomegalovirus; Herpes simplex virus; Rubella virus; Toxoplasma gondii; Women of childbearing age.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Zhu Y, Shang S, Chen Y, Chen D, Jia L, Qu W, et al. Expert consensus on standardized TORCH laboratory detection and clinical application. Chin J Lab Med. 2020;43(5):553–61. https://doi.org/10.3760/cma.j.cn114452-20191020-00597 . - DOI
    1. Neu N, Duchon J, Zachariah P. TORCH Infections. Clin Perinatol. 2015;42(1):77–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clp.2014.11.001 . - DOI - PubMed
    1. Nirmal K, Saha R, Ramachandran VG, Khan AM. TORCH infection in antenatal women: a 5-year hospital-based study. East J Med Sci. 2017;2(4):54–57. https://mansapublishers.com/index.php/ejms/article/view/671 .
    1. Megli CJ, Coyne CB. Infections at the maternal-fetal interface: an overview of pathogenesis and defence. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2022;20(2):67–82. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-021-00610-y . - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wang Y, Li S, Ma N, Zhang Q, Wang H, Cui J, et al. The association of ToRCH infection and congenital malformations: a prospective study in China. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2019;240:336–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejogrb.2019.04.042 . - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms