DIFFUSION OF CANDIDA SPECIES IN DIFFERENT CLINICAL SAMPLES AND THEIR SPECIATION AND ANTIFUNGAL SUSCEPTIBILITY PROFILE AT TWO TERTIARY CARE CENTERS, JAIPUR

Ankita Singhal*, Gaurav Dalela, Nikita Patidar and Atulya Nama

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Among fungal infections, invasive candidiasis is often associated with increased number of morbidity and death rate. Candida is an yeast like fungus that causes so many infections, range from non fatal mucocutaneous infections to fatal blood stream infections so the aim of this study is speciation of Candida species and evaluation of their antifungal susceptibility to avoid unnecessarily consumption of antifungal drugs. Material & Methods: A Prospective study which was carried out in the department of Microbiology, RUHS College of Medical Sciences, Jaipur. Clinical samples collected from concerned sites were cultured on SDA agar and incubated. Identification of candida species was done through HiCromeTM Candida Differential Agar and antifungal susceptibility was evaluated by VITEK-2 (Biomerieux) system and results were calculated through statistical analysis. Results: Out of 64 Candida isolates, 34.38% were candida albicans, followed by Candida tropicalis (31.25%) Candida krusei (20.31%), Candida kefyr (12.50%) and C. glabrata (1.56%). The most common Candida species isolated from urine were Candida albicans (34.24%) followed by Candida tropicalis (31.25%). Voriconazole (92.19%) and Amphotericin B (89.06%) were found the most sensitive drugs against the Candida isolates followed by Flucytosine (79.69%), Caspofungin (76.56%), Micafungin (70.31%) and Fluconazole (62.50%). All the candida Kefyr isolates were susceptible to Voriconazole, Amphotericin B and Flucytosine and resistant to Fluconazole. all Candida glabrata isolates were susceptible to all the 4 drugs except Micafungin and Caspofungin. Conclusion: The present study showed the Distribution of various candida species in various clinical samples and also revealed that Non-albicans Candida species are emerging as predominant species and increased resistance of Candida isolates towards common antifungal drugs which is a concern around all over the world.

Keywords: Candida albicans, Non-albicans Candida, Speciation, Antifungal Susceptibility.