Bacteriology and Infectious Diseases

Biography

Biography: Amanuel Abera Lomencho

Abstract

Despite current developments in HIV medicine and wide scale use of HAART, PCP (pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) still remains to be an important opportunistic infection especially in developing countries. Late diagnosis of HIV including first time diagnosis with an opportunistic disease is not uncommon in these settings. PCP usually presents acutely and is an important cause of AIDS related respiratory failure leading to ICU admission. A systematic review was done to look for predictors of mortality in HIV patients with severe PCP admitted to ICU. Studies that reported separate outcome for ICU patients with HIV/PCP were included. Pubmed, Embase and Medline search was made. Initial hit resulted 257 articles, out of which a final 8 were included in synthesis. Most studies were in the pre-HAART era. Results show that the use of mechanical ventilator, development of pneumothorax and duration of maximal therapy prior to ICU admission significantly predicted mortality in most studies. The results of this review could be of use to give emphasis to HIV patients who come with severe PCP ICU. More studies with bigger sample sizes and prospective in nature needs to be done to better explain the association.