Usefulness of Polymerase Chain Reaction Method in the Early Diagnosis of <I>Pneumocystis carinii</I> Pneumonia

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  • ISHIMINE Tomohiko
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus
  • NAKAMOTO Atsushi
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus
  • HIGA Futoshi
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus
  • KOIDE Michio
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus Research Center of Comperehensive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ruykys
  • INADOME Jun
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus
  • KAWAKAMI Kazuyoshi
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus
  • FUKUHARA Hiroshi
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus
  • KUSANO Nobuchika
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus
  • KITSUKAWA Keizou
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus
  • SAITO Atsushi
    First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus Research Center of Comperehensive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ruykys

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • <I>Pneumocystis carinii</I>肺炎の早期診断におけるPolymerase chain reaction (PCR) 法の有用性に関する研究
  • Pneumocystis carinii肺炎の早期診断におけるPolymerase chain reaction(PCR)法の有用性に関する研究
  • Pneumocystis carinii ハイエン ノ ソウキ シンダン ニ
  • Usefulness of Polymerase Chain Reaction Method in the Early Diagnosis of Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia

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Description

We evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method in the detection of Pneumocystis carinii, and compared its clinical usefulness with that of a previous method, toluidin blue-O (TBO) staining in diangosis of P. carinii pneumonia (PCP) using clinical samples such as sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF).<BR>Using P. carinii obtained from BALF of the infected rats, we showed that PCR showed 100 fold more sensitivity than TBO staining as indicated by the comparison of their detection limits (78 cysts/ml vs 7800 cysts/ml). In addition, the detection using PCR in this study was specific for P.<BR>carinii because all other pathogens examined were not positive.<BR>In the clinical study we analyzed 44 patients including 10 with definite PCP, 8 with porbable PCP and 26 with other diagnosis. In the sputum, the sensitivity and specificity were 100% and 95%, respectively, in PCR, while 13% and 100% in TBO staining.<BR>These results revealed that PCR was much sperior to TBO staining in sensitivity especially when the sputum was used as samples, and suggested that examination of the sputum by PCR was clinically very useful in early diagnosis of P. carinii peumonia.

Journal

  • Kansenshogaku Zasshi

    Kansenshogaku Zasshi 68 (6), 751-758, 1994

    The Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases

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