Chest ACCP Member Benefits
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Guest Access | Sign In via User Name/Password
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF) Free
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow View responses
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Article Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (2)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Agarwal, R.
Right arrow Articles by Afessa, B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Agarwal, R.
Right arrow Articles by Afessa, B.
(Chest. 2006;129:498.)
© 2006 American College of Chest Physicians

It’s Pneumocystis jiroveci Not Pneumocystis carinii

Ritesh Agarwal, MD; Chandana Reddy, MD; Ashutosh N. Aggarwal, MD and Akshay K. Saxena, MD

Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India

Correspondence to: Ritesh Agarwal, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Sector-12, Chandigarh-160012, India; e-mail: riteshpgi{at}gmail.com

To the Editor:

We read with interest the article by Sharma et al (September 2005).1 However, it was surprising to see the terminology used to describe human Pneumocystis infection. The organism that causes human Pneumocystis pneumonia has now been named Pneumocystis jiroveci at a Pneumocystis nomenclature meeting in 2001 at the 7th International Workshop on Opportunistic Protists, in honor of the Czech parasitologist Otto Jirovec, one of the first researchers to describe Pneumocystis infection in humans.2 In the last 2 years, numerous claims have been made to change this terminology.34

To assess the impact and usage of this terminology we searched MEDLINE using the MeSH terms "pneumocystis pneumonia," "Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia," "Pneumocystis jirovei pneumonia," and "pneumonia in the immunocompromised" between January 9, 2003 and January 9, 2005. In addition, we hand searched the CHEST for articles on human Pneumocystis published in the last 2 years. We gave a lag period of 2 years from the publication of the original reference2 to allow for the dissemination of the new terminology.

Our search yielded 231 citations; these articles used the terms "Pneumocystis carinii," "Pneumocystis jirovei," and "pneumocystis pneumonia" 56.7%, 27.7%, and 15.6% of the time, respectively, to describe human Pneumocystis infection. Furthermore, a hand search of the CHEST yielded 43 citations, and again "Pneumocystis carinii" was the most prevalent term (35 of 43 citations, 81.2%). Thus, one can see that the terminology of human Pneumocystis infection has not widely percolated in the literature. In fact, the above search is likely to be an underestimate because when we hand searched CHEST, we found 43 references that described the human Pneumocystis infection, whereas our MEDLINE search yielded only 5 references from CHEST.

In conclusion, P carinii should now only be used to describe the rat-derived infection, and P jirovei to describe human infection. The acronym "PCP" used to describe human Pneumocystis pneumonia should mean "PneumoCystis Pneumonia."

References

  1. Sharma, S, Nadrous, HF, Peters, SG, et al (2005) Pulmonary complications in adult blood and marrow transplant recipients: autopsy findings. Chest 128,1385-1392[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  2. Proceedings of the 7th International Workshops on Opportunistic Protists. Cincinnati, OH, June 13–16, 2001. J Eukaryot Microbiol 2001;Suppl,1S-204S
  3. Agarwal, R The acronym "PCP" is Pneumocystis pneumonia, not Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. AJR Am J Roentgenol 2005;185,1653-1654[Free Full Text]
  4. Miller, R Pneumocystis pneumonia in humans is caused by P jiroveci not P carinii. Thorax 2004;59,83[Free Full Text]

Bekele Afessa, MD, FCCP

Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN

Correspondence to: Bekele Afessa MD, FCCP, Mayo Clinic, 200 First St SW, Rochester, MN 55905; e-mail: afessa.bekele{at}mayo.edu

To the Editor:

We thank Agarwal and colleagues for their comments about our study (September 2005),1 entitled "Pulmonary Complications in Adult Blood and Marrow Transplant Recipients: Autopsy Findings." We agree with them that we should have used the term Pneumocystis jiroveci instead of Pneumocystis carinii in our article. We apologize for our mistake.

References

  1. Sharma, S, Nadrous, HF, Peters, SG, et al Pulmonary complications in adult blood and marrow transplant recipients: autopsy findings. Chest 2005;128,1385-1392



eLetters:

Read all eLetters

Pneumocystis jirovecii, not Pneumocystis jiroveci
Gilles Nevez, et al.
Chest Online, 6 Mar 2006 [Full text]
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF) Free
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow View responses
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Article Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (2)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Agarwal, R.
Right arrow Articles by Afessa, B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Agarwal, R.
Right arrow Articles by Afessa, B.

HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS