Pulmonary nocardiosis. Occurrence in men with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Pulmonary nocardiosis developed in three male patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), all of whom had been or were being treated with steroids and cytotoxic agents. These three cases comprise virtually the entire experience of our medical center with this infectious agent since 1971, and no cases of nocardiosis have been seen in a large group of treated and untreated female SLE patients. Unlike nine of ten previously reported cases, our patients each survived the infection with appropriate therapy, and subsequently either did well or died of other disease complications. The predisposition of nocardial infection for immunologically suppressed male subjects appears to hold true in SLE in spite of the strong predilection of this disease for women.