There are no optimal diagnostic, treatment and post-infection surveillance strategies for parvovirus B19 infection in solid organ transplantation (SOT) recipients.

We conducted a retrospective review of all PVB19 infected cases confirmed by qPCR among SOT recipients at our institution over a 3-year period and reviewed the literature from 1990 to 2021.

Eight kidney and two heart transplant patients with refractory anemia had PVB19 infection. The viral DNA load in peripheral blood ranged from 2.62×10² to 8.31×10⁶ copies/mL. Two patients with the lowest PVB19 DNA load only reduced the use of immunosuppressants and anemia was relieved. Eight received intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) (ranging from 0.25 to 0.5g/kg/day). The median time to anemia improvement (hemoglobulin>100g/L) was 16days (8–70days) after treatment. One patient had a PVB19 relapse and viral DNA load>1.00×10⁸ copies/mL at diagnosis. A total of 86 studies involving 194 SOTs were screened from the literature, and the most common symptom was anemia and low reticulocyte count. PVB19 DNA was detected in all cases. Of that, 91.4% of cases received IVIG, 53.8% received IVIG and immunosuppression reduction, 6.5% of cases showed reduced immunosuppression without IVIG, and 2.1% did not receive any special treatment. The recurrence rate was 17.5%.

PVB19 infection is a cause of anemia after SOT, and treatment mainly relies on IVIG and/or immunosuppression reduction.