Differences and similarities of cytomegalovirus and pneumocystis pneumonia in HIV-negative immunocompromised patients – thin section CT morphology in the early phase of the disease

The purpose of this study was to assess CT morphology of pneumocystis pneumonia (PcP) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) pneumonia for specific characteristic features, similarities as well as differences, which might contribute to an early diagnosis and, therefore, influence patient management58 patients were included, 31 with CMV pneumonia and 27 with PcP. All patients with CMV pneumonia had underlying haematological malignancies (n = 31) mainly treated by haematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) (n = 26). Patients with PcP had haematological malignancies (n = 17) treated by HCT in 6, solid tumours (n = 5) and corticosteroid therapy (n = 5). Thin section CTs were analysed retrospectively by two radiologists. 18 CT morphological criteria were evaluated for presence or absence. Significance was calculated by χ2 test. Interobserver correlation was tested by kappa-statistic (K)Only 5 of the 18 features were found to have significantly different frequencies in the two entities. Apical distribution (p<0.01), mosaic p...