The prevalence of Pneumocystis jirovecii among patients with different chronic pulmonary disorders in Ahvaz, Iran

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PJP) is a chronic fungal infection that caused by P. jirovecii. Disease is more prevalent among the HIV-infected patients. The colonization of pneumocystis in human respiratory system is associated with the airway inflammation and obstruction. The current study was conducted to identify the prevalence of P. jirovecii among the patients with chronic pulmonary disorders in Ahvaz, Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the present study, 115 bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) specimens were collected from patients. Samples were subjected to Nested-PCR with specific primers. The second PCR products were used for sequencing analysis. RESULTS: Our findings demonstrated that 31(27.0%) of samples were positive for P. jirovecii. Nine patients (29%) have tuberculosis (TB) followed by, 1(3.2%) HIV positive and 21(67.7%) miscellaneous pulmonary disorders. Our results show that there was no significant differences between sex (male:female ratio, 17:14), TB, HIV and P. jirovecii in BAL samples (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: The current study is the first report from Ahvaz and it showed a relatively high frequency (27%) of P. jirovecii among patients with different pulmonary disorders. In addition Nested-PCR might be reliable technique for diagnosis of P. jirovecii, while the Grocott’s methenamine silver (GMS) have a low sensitivity, which only two positive patients were identified.