Bio-Evolution

Pneumocystis jirovecii

Reference
BE-A994
Packaging
25 tests per kit
Nucleic Acid
DNA
CE Marking
yes

 

Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) is a form of pneumonia caused by a fungus, Pneumocystis jirovecii. The etiologic agent was originally described as a protozoon called Pneumocystis carinii, recently it was reclassified and renamed Pneumocystis jirovecii.

 

Thus, Pneumocystis pneumonia is also known as Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia and Pneumocystis cariniipneumonia.

 

Pneumocystis jirovecii is frequently found in healthy person’s lung, but is also the source of a opportunist lung infection in immunocompromised patients. Pneumocystis pneumonia is often found in patient with cancer, HIV, and in case of immunosuppressive treatments (transplant, auto-immune disease…).

 

PCP is very often associated with AIDS. As this disease only appears in cases of immunosuppression, it could be a first clue of an AIDS diagnosis. The symptoms are fever, coughing fits, respiratory failure, weight loss and night sweat. This infection can invade others organs like liver, kidney or spleen in a minority of cases.

 

The introduction of molecular biology technics allow to diagnose quickly a Pneumocystis pneumonia with a rapid detection of fungal DNA from samples. This test can be processed on broncho-alveolar liquid.

 

This kit permits to obtain results within 80 minutes (beside DNA extraction).