Clinicomycological study of Candida isolates in a tertiary care hospital: A pilot study

Background: Candida infection is on the rise with an increasing number of nonalbicans species. Therefore, the need to speciate Candida rapidly and accurately is of the utmost importance. The purpose of this study was to speciate Candida using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP), to analyze the correlation of the isolates with the clinical condition, and to study the outcome of the patient. Materials and Methods: PCR-RFLP using universal primers ITS1 and ITS4 was done to speciate all isolates of Candida; patient details were collected to analyze the clinical condition and the outcome of the patient. Results: The most common species of Candida isolated was Candida tropicalis 14 (56%) followed by Candida albicans 5 (20%), Candida auris 3 (14%), Candida parapsilosis 1 (4%), Candida orthopsilosis 1 (4%), and Candida kefyr 1 (4%). Majority of the samples that were collected were urine samples 15 (60%). The average duration of hospital stay was found to be 13.8 days. A number of underlying risk factors were present such as patients with diabetes, sepsis, malignancy, covid19 infection, surgical patients, preterm patients, elderly patients, and patients on long-term steroids. Conclusion: Candidemia is on the rise nowadays with nonalbicans species responsible for the majority of the infections. Since the outcome of the patient depends on rapid diagnosis and prompt initiation of antifungal agents PCR-RFLP proves to be a rapid and reliable test to identify most of the prevailing species of Candida.