Reactivation of herpesvirus type 6 in children receiving bone marrow transplants for leukemia

To the Editor: Human herpesvirus Type 6 (herpesvirus 6) has been isolated from peripheral-blood mononuclear cells of the liver¹ and kidney² of transplant recipients. However, the clinical importance of infection with this virus after organ transplantation is unknown. We report here on infection with herpesvirus 6 in three children with leukemia after bone marrow transplantation. Their clinical and virologic features are summarized in Table 1. All three children had received bone marrow from HLA-matched siblings. Herpesvirus 6 was isolated by coculturing peripheral-blood mononuclear cells from the donors and recipients with phytohemagglutinin-stimulated cord-blood mononuclear cells.³ The virus was isolated from the blood of. .