colonization in asthmatic patients not receiving oral corticosteroid therapy.

Pneumocystis jirovecii can colonize patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. To determine if colonization occurs in asthma patients, sputum samples from 10 patients with mild asthma, who were not receiving oral corticosteroids, were evaluated by a sensitive real-time PCR assay that targets a multicopy gene of P. jirovecii. 2 patients (20%) had Pneumocystis DNA detected; 1 patient had 3 positive samples over an 11-day period. Thus, Pneumocystis colonization occurs in asthma patients, and further studies are warranted to evaluate its role in airways disease.