The most common life-threatening opportunistic infection diagnosed in AIDS patients is caused by a parasite, Pneumocystis carinii.
A form of pneumonia found in people with impaired immune systems after radiotherapy or with AIDS.
A subacute opportunistic infection marked by fever, nonproductive cough, tachypnea, dyspnea, and hypoxemia. It is caused by Pneumocystis carinii, the former name of Pneumocystis jiroveci, an organism formerly thought to be a protozoan but now generally accepted as a fungus. The disease is seen principally in immunosuppressed patients, such as persons with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or those who have received an organ transplant and immunosuppressant drugs. Without treatment, the progressive respiratory failure that the infection causes is ultimately fatal.