Abstract

Introduction: Among fungal infections, invasive candidiasis is often associated with increased number of morbidity and death rate. Candida species causing so many infections range from non fatal mucocutaneous infections to fatal blood stream infections, so the aim of this study is isolate and speciate the Candida species and their anti-fungal susceptibility to avoid unnecessarily consumption of anti-fungal drugs. Material & Methods: A Prospective study which was carried out in the Department of Microbiology, Pacific Institute of Medical Sciences Udaipur. Specimen collected from the various sites were collected and cultured on SDA agar and incubated. Identification of Candida species was done through Hi-Crome Candida Differential Agar and anti-fungal susceptibility was evaluated by VITEK-2 automated 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 Candida 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 shows the distribution of Candida species in various clinical specimens and also revealed that Non-albicans Candida species are emerging as the predominant species. The increased resistance of Candida isolates towards common anti-fungal drugs which is a concern around all over the world.

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