Candida Species Isolated from Various Clinical Samples and Their Susceptibility Patterns to Antifungals

Candida is an asexual, diploid, dimorphic fungus that is present on human body and his environment. Nowadays the number of patients, who are immunocompromised, aged, receiving prolonged antibacterial and aggressive cancer chemotherapy or undergoing invasive surgical procedures and organ transplantation, is on increase, and therefore candidiasis emerged itself as an alarming opportunistic disease. The aim of this study is to identify the most common Candida species in clinical samples, and their antifungal susceptibility patterns. During a cross-sectional study performed in the Department of Microbiology and Serology, Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals (India) from January to December 2012, some 213 fungal isolates from various samples were collected. All the isolates were identified to the species level, using Vitek 2 YST identification card (bioMerieux, France). Antifungal sensitivity was performed against amphotericin B (AMB), 5 flucytosine (5-FC), fluconazole (FLU) and voriconazole (VOR) using ASTYS06 (bioMerieux, France). The majority of the isolates were from urine (48%) followed by respiratory (17%) and blood samples (16%). The most common species among the 213 isolates were Candida tropicalis (56%) followed by Candida albicans (33%). Non-albicans Candida species are emerging as the major pathogens and mainly seen in patients on prolonged ventilation and central lines. Antifungal agents should be used cautiously due to increased resistance seen in these agents.