STUDY OF CANDIDA SPECIES AND ITS ANTIFUNGAL SUSCEPTIBILITY PATTERN IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Abstract

Introduction: Opportunistic infections by Candida spp are becoming quite common in hospitals today with antifungal resistance, an increasing problem in many wards. Candida albicans has been the commonest species causing infection for many years but indiscriminate use of azole group of drugs has led to increase in NCA infection and resistance to antifungal drugs in Candida species

Methodology: Duration of the study was from7th June- 2018 to 12^th Mar 2019. Candida species isolated from various clinical specimens were subjected to speciation using standard yeast identification protocol and CHROM agar. Antifungal susceptibility testing was performed and interpreted for all the isolates of Candida using disc diffusion method as recommended by Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) M44-A document guidelines. The inoculum was prepared by suspending five colonies of growth in 5 ml of sterile saline and compared the turbidity to 0.5 McFarland Standard. A cotton swab was dipped into the inoculum suspension and evenly streaked onto Mueller–Hinton agar supplemented with 2% glucose and 5 μg/ml methylene blue against Amphotericin B and Azole group of antifungals like Fluconazole, Itraconazole, Clotrimazole and Voriconazole.

Results: Among the 268 culture positive isolates 152(56.7%) were C. albicans and 116 (43.2%) were non candida albicans. Among NCA, 53(19.7%) were C. tropicalis followed by other species. Susceptibility pattern showed that Azole group 73.0% sensitive among C. albicans and 67.9% sensitive among C. tropicalis while in Amphotericin B sensitivity varies from 50 % to 100% to all isolated spp. of candida.

Conclusion: In this study C.albicans was the most common yeast isolated from all the clinical samples. The C. albicans and NCA showed highly susceptible to Amphotericin B, followed by Voriconazole.