Mortality rate and prognostic factors for poor outcome in HIV-infected Bulgarian patients with Pneumocystis pneumonia over a 3-year period

Abstract

Background: In spite of the use of combination antiretroviral therapy and specific prophylaxis, Pneumocystis pneumonia remains one of the most common AIDS-defining disease with high mortality rate. The aim of this study is to analyze the cases of pneumocystis pneumonia over a three-year period by means of assessing the mortality rate and the prognostic factors for the outcome of the disease. Material and methods: Epidemiological, clinical, laboratory and demographic data were analyzed for 13 HIV-infected patients with proved pneumocystis pneumonia, hospitalized at the AIDS Department over the period January 2017–December 2019. For data processing we used different methods of descriptive statistics. Results: All presented patients have extremely severe immune deficiency and other opportunistic infections or AIDS-related diseases. The diagnosis of pneumocystis pneumonia was confirmed with PCR in 76.9% of the patients and with Giemsa staining for cysts and trophozoites in 23,1% of the patients. Most of our patients are male (84,6%) and the leading mechanism of HIV infection is unprotected homosexual contact. The mean age of the patients presented is 37.4 ± 10.27. Our results showed high PJP mortality (46.3 %), despite the applied etiological therapy. Conclusions: Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PJP) continues to be a life-threatening infection in HIV-infected patients with severe immune suppression. PJP mortality continues to be high, and there is a statistically significant dependence on age, male sex, low CD 4 T+ cell count, high viral load of HIV, low blood albumin, and the number and severity of comorbidities.