Since the beginning of the 1980s, outbreaks and clusters of Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) in immunocompromised populations have been reported with some regularity. Interhuman transmission of Pneumocystis jirovecii was already then suspected by the attending clinicians [1]. Long before this time, shortly after World War II, PCP was reported to occur clustered in institutionalized populations of m...

BACKGROUND Outbreaks of Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PCP) in kidney transplant recipients are frequently reported worldwide. However, the general guidelines propose only short-term prophylaxis with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole after kidney transplantation. We experienced 3 PCP outbreaks in the last 10 years despite providing the recommended prophylaxis. The purpose of this study was to fi...

BACKGROUND Pneumocystis jirovecii causes Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) in immunocompromised patients with a high rate of morbidity and mortality. Colonization with this fungus may stimulate pulmonary inflammation or lead to PCP in susceptible patients. The epidemiology of this infection and routs of its transmission has poorly studied in Iran. We examined Pneumosystis colonization in patients wi...

Pneumocystis jirovecii causes pneumonia in immunosuppressed individuals. However, it has been reported the detection of low levels of Pneumocystis DNA in patients without signs and symptoms of pneumonia, which likely represents colonization. Several studies performed in animals models and in humans have demonstrated that Pneumocystis induces a local and a systemic response in the host. Since P ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES With increasing rate of immunodeficiency diseases in the world, opportunistic micro-organism such as Pneumocystis jirovecii (P. jirovecii) become more important. Little information is available on prevalence of this life-threatening microorganism in Iran. This study was designed to determine the colonization and the rate of active disease caused by P. jirovecii in two ...

BACKGROUND Based on the authors' knowledge, there is no study on the co-infection of opportunistic agents such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Pneumocystis jirovecii in the lungs of Iranian patients with immunosuppression. OBJECTIVES The current study aimed to show the rate of co-infection of M. tuberculosis and P. jirovecii in patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). PATIENTS AN...

Pneumocystis pneumonia is a severe opportunistic infection in immunocompromised patients caused by the unusual fungus Pneumocystis jirovecii. Transmission is airborne, with both immunocompromised and immunocompetent individuals acting as a reservoir for the fungus. Numerous reports of outbreaks in renal transplant units demonstrate the need for valid genotyping methods to detect transmission of...

Pleural infection is associated with 20% mortality in the 80 000 new cases per year in the UK and USA. Streptococcus species cause w50% of community-acquired bacterial pleural infection. Staphylococcus aureus and anaerobes are isolated in 8% and 20% of cases, respectively, and 12% of pleural infections yield polymicrobial cultures. However, even using culture and nucleic acid amplification tech...

Detection of viral and bacterial DNA in nasopharyngeal aspirates (NPAs) is now a routine practice in emergency cases of febrile pneumonia. We investigated whether Pneumocystis jirovecii DNA could also be detected in these cases by conducting retrospective screening of 324 consecutive NPAs from 324 adult patients (198 or 61% were immunocompromised) admitted with suspected pulmonary infections du...

We investigated Pneumocystis jirovecii dihydropteroate synthase (DHPS) and dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) genes for mutations in 25 Chinese HIV-infected patients with P. jirovecii pneumonia. We identified DHPS mutations in 3 (12%) patients and DHFR mutations in 1 (4%) patient. The prevalence of DHPS and DHFR mutations in China remains low, as it does in other developing countries.