Original articleMolecular characterization of Candida isolates from intensive care unit patients, Krakow, PolandCaracterización molecular de aislamientos de Candida de pacientes en cuidados intensivos en Cracovia, Polonia
Section snippets
Patients and strains
One hundred and twenty three patients with multi-organ failure were enrolled into the study. They were hospitalised between 2009 and 2012 at the Intensive Care Unit of Ludwik Rydygier Memorial Hospital in Krakow. The study population consisted of 74 (60.2%) males and 49 (39.8%) females with the average age of 64 years (range 18–93) from south-eastern Poland. Antifungal prophylaxis had not been administered to the patients included in this study.
The predominant fungal species isolated in the
Results
All the 62 isolates subjected to PCR assay using primers targeting the HWP1 gene were identified as C. albicans, as a ∼1000-bp fragment was amplified. In the remaining 40 isolates, analyzed with the use of the primers for amplification of the ITS region, a ∼420-bp band, specific for C. glabrata was detected (Fig. 1).
The MIC50 and MIC90 values of amphotericin B, fluconazole, 5-fluorocytosine and voriconazole for C. albicans, C. glabrata, C. tropicalis, C. krusei and C. kefyr isolates are shown
Discussion
The yeasts belonging to the Candida genus are recognized as the dominant human pathogenic fungi. They affect hospitalized patients with systemic life-threatening infections.
Because of a documented increase in the incidence of new emerging species closely related to C. albicans and C. glabrata, application of PCR-based molecular methods to identify them is crucial.6, 7, 32, 33 The identification by phenotypic methods (e.g. chromogenic media or automatic systems) may be inconclusive, therefore
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
The scientific work was supported by the Jagiellonian University Medical College with funds from maintenance of the research potential of the JU MC Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology.
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