Abstract:

From January 1999 through April 2000, 208 Candida strains were obtained from hospitalized patients with nosocomial infection. Most of the species were isolated from urine (77.8%) followed by oropharynx (8.2%), blood stream (6.1%), drain (6.1%), peritoneum (0.9%) and cerebrospinal fluid specimens (0.9%). The distribution of the species obtained was Candida albicans (75.4%), C. glabrata (8.2%), C. tropicalis (4.8%), C. kefyr (3.4%), C. parapsilosis (2.5%), C. lusitaniae (1.9%), C. famata (1.4%), C. krusei (1.4%), and C. guilliermondii (1%). The antifungal susceptibility of the isolates to 5-fluorocytosine (5FCU), amphotericin B (AMP), nystatin (NYS), econazole (ECO), miconazole (MIC) and ketoconazole (KET) was tested by means of the ATB fungus method ((bioMerieux sa Marcy-l'Etoile/France). All the isolates were susceptible to amphotericin B, though a small number of in vitro resistant isolates were observed against nystatin and 5-fluorocytosine (3.4%). The resistance to miconazole, econazole and ketoconazole was higher at 18.8%, 15.8% and 23.6% respectively.

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