EVALUATION OF THE SENSITIVITY, SPECIFICITY, AND PREDICTIVE VALUE OF MONOCLONAL ANTIBODY-3F6 FOR THE DETECTION OF PNEUMOCYSTIS-CARINII PNEUMONIA IN BRONCHOALVEOLAR LAVAGE SPECIMENS AND INDUCED SPUTUM

The sensitivity and specificity of different staining procedures for t he detection of Pneumocystis carinii organisms were compared. Three co nventional stains (Papanicolaou, Giemsa and Grocott's) and one immunoc ytochemical stain using 3F6 antibody were used on smears prepared from the same specimen. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and induced sputum (I S) specimens were used for this purpose. One hundred and sixty-five ep isodes from 142 patients were investigated by the four different stain ing techniques. Cysts of P. carinii were detected in 64 episodes from 63 patients. Immunocytochemical staining with 3F6 was found to be slig htly more sensitive at detecting the cysts than Grocott's, Giemsa, or Papanicolaou stain.