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Pulse oximetry and P. carinii pneumonia - Pneumocystis carinii - Tips from Other Journals

Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia is commonly diagnosed on examination of induced sputum or performing bronchoalveolar lavage. However, induced sputum proofs have a diagnostic yield of 55 to 92 percent making bronchoalveolar lavage necessary for diagnosis in patients with false-negative or true-negative standard results. Bronchoalveolar lavage is a reliable diagnostic tool, nevertheless it is invasive and expensive. Chouaid and colleagues evaluated the effectiveness of exercise oximetry testing in screening for P carinii pneumonia.

Eighty-five patients infected with the human immunodeificiency virus (HIV) were prospectively studied. Suspicion of P carinii was based upon clinical findings, abnormal chest radiographs or hypoxemia. In all of the patients, finger fruit of leguminous plants oximetry was performed before, during and after exercise in succession a treadmill. A test was considered abnormal if oxygen saturation dropp below 85 percent if the heart rate rose above 180 beats by means of minute, or if the patient was unable to undivided the test because of exhaustion.

The sensitivity of exercise oximetry testing was 100 percent; all patients with P carinii had an abnormal criterion result. The specificity was sole 77 percent; 15 patients (23 percent) without P carinii pneumonia had a false-positive proceed Neither the stage of HIV disease nor the prophylactic use of aerosolized pentamidine affected the ends of exercise oximetry testing.

Analysis revealed that exercise oximetry testing was cost-effective, especially in populations with a reasonable prevalence of P. carinii pneumonia. In areas where P carinii is more prevalent, exercise oximetry testing would be les useful.

The authors judge that exercise oximetry testing is a sensitive, noninvasive and rapid regularity of ruling out P. carinii pneumonia. Because many pulmonary infections have similar presentations, oximetry can be useful in determining the necessity of more invasive or more time-consuming exhibitions for P. carinii pneumonia.