A Followup Study of Asymptomatic Carriers of <i>Pneumocystis jiroveci</i> During Immunosuppressive Therapy for Rheumatoid Arthritis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To examine the preventive effects of prophylaxis against Pneumocystis jiroveci-induced pneumonia (PCP) in patients receiving immunosuppressive therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are colonized by this organism. METHODS: We performed molecular testing by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for P. jiroveci on induced sputum or bronchoalveolar lavage fluids of 82 patients with RA. During primary prophylaxis, asymptomatic carriers of this organism were examined by high-resolution computed tomography and PCR every 2 weeks. RA patients who had developed PCP received PCR tests every week. Once negative results were obtained, PCR testing was scheduled at Months 1, 3, and 6, followed by reexaminations every 6 months. RESULTS: We found 9 cases of asymptomatic carriage of P. jiroveci. All the carriers had received low doses of methotrexate. Upon introduction of PCP prophylaxis, 5 cases tested negative for PCR within 1 month. Three carriers developed PCP before starting prophylaxis, but these tested negative for PCR after short periods (1-2 weeks) of PCP treatment. Once P. jiroveci was eradicated, all cases maintained negative PCR results during followup without prophylactic intervention, even after resuming immunosuppressive therapy. One patient refused PCP prophylaxis, but no PCP developed. CONCLUSION: RA patients with asymptomatic carriage of P. jiroveci benefited from short-term prophylaxis against PCP. Positive PCR results appeared to be predictive of future development of PCP in RA patients. Identification of P. jiroveci carriers will encourage prompt introduction of PCP prophylaxis when rheumatologists consider immunosuppressive therapy for RA.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".