Villanueva MET, et al. - Given the leading causative role of congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in hearing loss and mental retardation throughout the world, researchers sought to generate a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methodology for the detection of CMV in the meconium of neonates. They collected Meconium from 10 newborn infants (seven with positive viral cultures and three uninfected infants born to CMV-seropositive mothers). In all infected and positive control meconium samples, gel electrophoresis exhibited an anticipated PCR product of 250 base pairs (bp) corresponding to the MIE region of CMV. Meconium of infected neonates exhibited CMV presence, which is readily detectable by PCR.