pneumocystis

they seemed to have changed the name from pneumocystis carinii to pneumocystis jirovecii. why? you can read it yourself here

so, i was hanging out at the CDC (center for disease control) website and thought i'd look up pneumocystis, just for a gas. well, some interesting articles popped up that caught my eye. in particular, one focusing on how common it is to find pneumocystis in normal healthy immunocompetent adults, and that perhaps it is spread from person to person. "Our findings may suggest that healthy adults represent a new dynamic reservoir and source of infection for human Pneumocystis species." There are other reports where patients in a hospital seem to have caught it from other patients. In this latter case the patients had undergone kidney transplants. More than likely these patients caught PCP because their immune system was supressed in order for the kidney transplant to take. The genetic strain of the PCP's found in these patients were all the same, suggesting that it can be transmitted from person to person....

why am i writing about this? well, hans ochs has questioned whether or not isaac really had PCP. i have yet to question the pulmonologist on how he made the diagnosis. is the presence of pneumocystis mean he's got PCP? or was it an overwhelming colony outbreak? i do not know. and wouldn't it be interesting if he caught it in the hospital? or perhaps from me? or anyone else?

the fact it can be passed from person to person doesn't really matter. i really do want to know, though, how the diagnosis was made. if he didn't really have PCP, then what did he have?