Is there a connection between RTX and lung infections ?

[me2]

Bactrim was at one time, and I assume it still is, used prophylacticly for pheumocystiis carinii as described in the article you gave for aids patients. As I remember it they were finding that this infection was becoming the highest cause of death for people with acquired immune deficiency from this virus and Bactrim was used for that.

I don' think that our immune deficiency is actually what we are using Bactrim for. Not for pcp.

At one of the WG conferences in Kansas City I got to attend a small seminar and talk directly with the doctor who discovered that Bactrim had unique use in WG patients. His discovery was that Bactrim alone in some rare cases could induce remission of Wg . This was unheard of. But as one of the citations states --
In Wegener's Granulomatosis (WG) chronic carriage of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is associated with a strongly increased risk for relapsing disease.

I couldn't find the definitive article I was looking for by Dr DeRemee so I have to use the shot gun approach and just give the literature I could find- it consistently says pretty much the same thing:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8880118

JAMA Network | JAMA Internal Medicine | Treatment of Wegener's Granulomatosis With Sulfamethoxazole-Trimethoprim

Co-trimoxazole and prevention of relapses of P... [Eur J Med Res. 2009] - PubMed - NCBI

Vasculitis and infections: contribution to the... [Autoimmun Rev. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI

[Wegener's granulomatosi... [Rev Med Inst Mex Seguro Soc. 2006 May-Jun] - PubMed - NCBI

The relation between Staphylococcus aureus and We... [Intern Med. 2003] - PubMed - NCBI

Infections and Wegener's granulomatosis--a cause and eff... [QJM. 1997] - PubMed - NCBI

Staphylococcus aureus, tri... [Sarcoidosis Vasc Diffuse Lung Dis. 1996] - PubMed - NCBI

What is the evidence for prophylactic an... [Curr Opin Rheumatol. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI

Chronic crusting, nasal carriage of Stap... [J Physiol Pharmacol. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI

Staphylococcus aureus and Wegener's granulomat... [Arthritis Res. 2002] - PubMed - NCBI

As a side note , I met with Dr Deremee after the seminar and told him I was allergic to Bactrim. He told me that (at that time) it was not known which of the two agents in Bactrim were responsible for the beneficial result or whether both trimethaprime and sulfamethoxazole were necessary. He suggested I try the trimethaprime if I could not use Bactrim and see what happened. Most likely the sulfamethoxazole is the component that people have an allergy to.

Well, I came home and started doing my own research on Bactrim use (the internet had just been invented) and found it was being used largely for aids patients with pcp. It was then that I discovered there was a desensitization protocol for Bactrim with a very high success rate. I printed out the article I found and took it took to my doctor. He had outlined some treatment using other drugs until I showed him what I had found . When I showed him the info he said "Lets do that" .
I was able to desensitize to Bactrim and can still take it now. What is striking to me , even now , is that at that time, even Dr DeRemee was not aware of the desensitization protocol or he would have told me. It is common knowledge now in the treatment of wg and use of Bactrim.
Sorry to be so long winded but you see way back then I had to work very hard to get information to stay alive.