Emergence of non-albicans Candida species in critical care patients of a tertiary care hospital

---

Original Article

Author Details : Jasvir Kaur, Poonam Sharma, Sarbjeet Sharma

Volume : 3, Issue : 4, Year : 2016

Article Page : 398-400

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

Introduction: Candida species are the most common cause of opportunistic fungal infections, resulting in a variety of manifestations ranging from mucocutaneous lesions to life-threatening invasive diseases, particularly in immunocompromised patients. Although C.albicans is most common cause of candidiasis, a shift towards non-albicans Candida species is evident in recent years. The transition of Candida spp. from commensal to a potent pathogen is facilitated by a number of virulence factors viz. adherence to host tissues and medical devices, biofilm formation, and secretion of extracellular hydrolytic enzymes.
Objective: To study the prevalence of C.albicans & Non-albicans isolates in critical care settings.
Material & Methods: The present study was carried out in the Mycology section of Microbiology Department, SGRUHS, Amritsar during the period of July 2014 to June 2016.  Candida strains isolated from various clinical samples (i.e. urine, blood, foley’s catheter tip etc.) received from different ICUs of the hospital were included in the study. The isolates were identified upto species level by both conventional and automated methods (vitek 2 compact system) as per CLSI guidelines. Relevant history of all the patients was taken.
Results: Out of the 115 isolates obtained from various ICUs, most common isolate was C.tropicalis 60/115(52.17%) followed by C.albicans 45/115(39.13%) and C.utilis 7/115 (6.25%). Isolates of C.lusitaniae, C.parasillosis & C.glabrata were 1/115 (0.86%) each.
Conclusions: Our study showed a shift among Candida species from albicans (39.13%) to non-albicans (60.86), thus stressing their emergence as major fungal pathogens in critical care settings.

Keywords: Non-albicans candida, Candida albicans, Critical care units, Predominance, Tertiary care hospital

How to cite : Kaur J, Sharma P, Sharma S, Emergence of non-albicans Candida species in critical care patients of a tertiary care hospital. Indian J Microbiol Res 2016;3(4):398-400

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.