TY - JOUR T1 - Predictive value of bronchoalveolar lavage in excluding a diagnosis of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia during prophylaxis with aerosolized pentamidine. AU - Teuscher,A U, AU - Opravil,M, AU - Theiler,R, AU - Speich,R, AU - Kuster,H, AU - Siegenthaler,W, AU - Russi,E W, AU - Lüthy,R, PY - 1993/4/1/pubmed PY - 1993/4/1/medline PY - 1993/4/1/entrez SP - 519 EP - 22 JF - Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America JO - Clin Infect Dis VL - 16 IS - 4 N2 - We assessed the negative predictive value of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) during prophylaxis with aerosolized pentamidine. On the basis of the assumption that undiagnosed and untreated PCP would progress and become clinically apparent, for 3 months we prospectively followed 34 consecutive cases in which BAL had not detected PCP. All patients were immunodeficient, had a symptomatic human immunodeficiency virus infection, and were evaluated for possible PCP during prophylaxis with aerosolized pentamidine. No transbronchial biopsies were performed. In 32 of 34 cases, a diagnosis of PCP could be excluded because of other definite diagnoses or improvement during the follow-up. Despite negative results of an examination of their BAL fluid, two patients received empirical treatment that was active against PCP; these patients were regarded as possibly having undiagnosed PCP. Thus, the negative predictive value of BAL alone was at least 94% (32 of 34 cases) in excluding a diagnosis of PCP during prophylaxis with aerosolized pentamidine. SN - 1058-4838 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/8513058/Predictive_value_of_bronchoalveolar_lavage_in_excluding_a_diagnosis_of_Pneumocystis_carinii_pneumonia_during_prophylaxis_with_aerosolized_pentamidine_ L2 - https://academic.oup.com/cid/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/clind/16.4.519 DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -