TY - JOUR AU - Tipirneni, Renuka AU - Daly, Kieran R. AU - Jarlsberg, Leah G. AU - Koch, Judy V. AU - Swartzman, Alexandra AU - Roth, Brenna M. AU - Walzer, Peter D. AU - Huang, Laurence T1 - Healthcare Worker Occupation and Immune Response to Pneumocystis jirovecii T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2009 VL - 15 IS - 10 SP - 1590 SN - 1080-6059 AB - The reservoir and mode of transmission of Pneumocystis jirovecii remain uncertain. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 126 San Francisco General Hospital staff in clinical (n = 103) and nonclinical (n = 23) occupations to assess whether occupational exposure was associated with immune responses to P. jirovecii. We examined antibody levels by ELISA for 3 overlapping fragments that span the P. jirovecii major surface glycoprotein (Msg): MsgA, MsgB, and MsgC1. Clinical occupation participants had higher geometric mean antibody levels to MsgC1 than did nonclinical occupation participants (21.1 vs. 8.2, p = 0.004); clinical occupation was an independent predictor of higher MsgC1 antibody levels (parameter estimate = 0.89, 95% confidence interval 0.29–1.48, p = 0.003). In contrast, occupation was not significantly associated with antibody responses to either MsgA or MsgB. Healthcare workers may have occupational exposure to P. jirovecii. Humans may be a reservoir for P. jirovecii and may transmit it from person to person. KW - Pneumocystis KW - health personnel KW - HIV/AIDS and other retroviruses KW - opportunistic infections KW - antibodies KW - fungal KW - fungi KW - serologic tests KW - research KW - United States DO - 10.3201/eid1510.090207 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/15/10/09-0207_article ER - End of Reference