Healthcare Worker Occupation and Immune Response to Pneumocystis Jirovecii

Overview

Journal Emerg Infect Dis

Specialty Infectious Diseases

Date 2009 Oct 29

PMID 19861050

Citations 15

Authors

Renuka Tipirneni

Kieran R Daly

Leah G Jarlsberg

Judy V Koch

Alexandra Swartzman

Brenna M Roth

Peter D Walzer

Laurence Huang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The reservoir and mode of transmission of Pneumocystis jirovecii remain uncertain. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 126 San Francisco General Hospital staff in clinical (n = 103) and nonclinical (n = 23) occupations to assess whether occupational exposure was associated with immune responses to P. jirovecii. We examined antibody levels by ELISA for 3 overlapping fragments that span the P. jirovecii major surface glycoprotein (Msg): MsgA, MsgB, and MsgC1. Clinical occupation participants had higher geometric mean antibody levels to MsgC1 than did nonclinical occupation participants (21.1 vs. 8.2, p = 0.004); clinical occupation was an independent predictor of higher MsgC1 antibody levels (parameter estimate = 0.89, 95% confidence interval 0.29-1.48, p = 0.003). In contrast, occupation was not significantly associated with antibody responses to either MsgA or MsgB. Healthcare workers may have occupational exposure to P. jirovecii. Humans may be a reservoir for P. jirovecii and may transmit it from person to person.

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