Study of antifungal susceptibility pattern of various Candida species with reference to conventional and automated methods in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Introduction: The incidence of Candida infections is on the rise with the increase in number of immuno-compromised patients due to excessive use of immunosuppressive drugs as well as the use of medical and surgical interventions. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital from February 2021- August 2022. All Candida isolates from various clinical samples during the study period were processed for identification and susceptibility testing by both Automated & Conventional methods with E-strip. Data analysed by using Microsoft excel spreadsheet and then analyzed by SPSS and Graph PadPrism version 5. Result: Total Candida isolates were 100, among them near about half (43%) of the isolates were obtained from critical care unit followed by thoracic unit (17%), Ward (16%), trauma centre (15%), high dependency (7%) and 2% from outdoor. Maximum number of isolates came from central line catheter 43, followed by blood 19. other samples from where candida were isolated are urine 13, endotracheal aspirate 9, Pleural fluid 7, Bronchoalveolar lavage 3, Cerebrospinal Fluid 3 and Wound 3. Isolated pathogens were Candida albicans. Candida tropicalis, Candida parapsilosis, Candida glabrata, Candida auris, Candida guilliermondii , Candida haemulonii, Candida ciferrii, Candida famata, Candida duobushaemulonii. The association between isolated Candida and from which samples they are isolated were statistically significant with ‘P’ value <0.0001 and Chi-square value: 284.4447. Conclusion: The increasing incidence of HIV infections, increasing incidence of organ transplantation, wide spread use of antibiotics and use of immunosuppressive agents are the important causative factors responsible for the increasing incidence of Candida infections. Furthermore, due to increasing resistance to various antifungal agents Candida has assumed greater clinical importance. This observation of the present study is in consonance with the changing trend seen both in India and across the world.

Keywords

• candida
• afst
• fluconazole
• non-albicans
• infection