1 Departments of Pediatrics and Thoracic Surgery, Emory University School of Medicine, and Henrietta Egleston Hospital for Children, Atlanta, Georgia
Three infants with proved Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and immunologic deficiency are reported. Pertinent aspects of the clinical history, physical findings, laboratory data, and x-ray examinations are discussed.
Review of the pediatric literature confirms the association of P. carinii pneumonia in infants with altered host resistance.
Emphasis is given to the value of open lung biopsy as a diagnostic tool.
The experience of treatment and re-treatment of one infant with pentamidine isethionate (4 mg/kg/day) and gamma-globulin is recorded.
The underlying disease state of immunologic deficiency or lymphoreticular disease may make the ultimate prognosis grave, even in view of clinical improvement or recovery from P. carinii pneumonia following treatment with pentamidine isethionate.
Submitted on December 30, 1965