Rev Iberoam Micol 2008; 25:17-21.

Distribution and antifungal susceptibility of Candida clinical isolations coming from six health care centers in the metropolitan area of Caracas, Venezuela (years 2003-2005)

Maribel E. Dolande Franco1,2, Vera Reviákina1, María Mercedes Panizo1, Carolina Macero3, Xiomara Moreno3, Alberto Calvo4, Sofía Selgrad1, Juana Papatzikos5, Vivian Vergara5 & María José Mendoza6

1Departamento de Micología, Instituto Nacional de Higiene “Rafael Rangel”, Ciudad Universitaria. Los Chaguaramos, Caracas;
2Laboratorio de Microbiología, Clínica Santa Sofía, El Cafetal, Caracas;
3Laboratorio de Microbiología, Instituto Médico La Floresta, La Floresta, Caracas;
4Laboratorio de Microbiología, Policlínica Metropolitana, Caurimare, Caracas;
5Laboratorio de Microbiología, Hospital de Clínicas Caracas, San Bernardino, Caracas;
6Laboratorio de Microbiología, Clínica El Ávila, Altamira, Caracas, Venezuela

The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency and antifungal susceptibility of Candida clinical isolations coming from patients with candidiasis in six health care centers of Caracas, Venezuela metropolitan area. The laboratory reports were retrospectively revised from January 2003 through August 2005. The isolated yeasts identification was carried out by conventional methods and antifungal susceptibility was evaluated by ATB-fungus (bioMérieux, France) and Etest (AB Biodisk, Solna, Sweden). One thousand nine hundred seventy seven (1,977) yeasts were studied and their susceptibility testing were carried out only in 1,414 of them. C. albicans was the most isolated yeast (46.7%) and none-albicans Candida-species represented more than half of the isolations (53.4%). All the isolated yeasts evaluated presented CMIs <1 ?g/ml to anfotericina B and showed variable susceptibility percentages to fluconazole (91.5%), itraconazole (80%) and voriconazole (98.6%).



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