Background: Patients with end-stage renal failure (ESRD) require hemodialysis. According to this point that CMV infection is related to mortality in immunocompromised, and damages in hemodialysis, this study is designed to survey the seroprevalence of CMV and primary infection in hemodialysis (HD) patients.

Material and methods: Current cross-sectional studies were found by online reviewing the national and international databases (Web of Science, Pubmed, Scopus, Science Direct, Google scholar), and suitable studies were selected. NOS checklist were used for evaluation of the qualities of all papers. Assessment of heterogeneity among the studies of primary studies was performed using Chi-squared test (Cochran's Q) and I2 index (significance level of 50%). The statistical analysis were performed using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) V.2. For assessing publication bias, the Egger test was used by subjective judgment in each study. Also the effect of potential factor on heterogeneity of studies was performed by Meta-regression test and the impact of each study on the overall estimate was assessed by sensitivity analysis.

Results: This meta- analysis included 23 primary studies investigating seroprevalence of Cytomegalovirus antibodies and primary infection among hemodialysis patients. Finding showed that seroprevalence of CMV IgG and IgM antibodies in hemodialysis patients at 95% confidence interval using random effect model was 88.7% (81.7-93.2%) and 10.9% (5.9-19.2%) respectively. Also the frequency of CMV infection among these studies were reported 41% (18.8-67.6%).

Conclusion: We found that frequency of CMV IgG was higher and it was detected in HD patients. The result of our study showed that most patients were exposure to CMV during dialysis may reactivate by various stimulation, including immunosuppression and inflammation, so screening of patients should be performed to prevent future consequences such as kidney transplant rejection during of dialysis.