Fluconazole Susceptibility Profile of Candida isolates Recovered from Patients Specimens Admitted to Yazd Central Laboratory

The increasing incidence of candidiasis and antifungal resistance as well as the introducing of new antifungal has recently encouraged performing of fungal susceptibility testing. The aim of this study was to evaluate the susceptibility profile of Candida species isolated from patients admitted to Yazd central laboratory to fluconazole. We used the broth microdilution method to evaluate the susceptibility profile of a large collection of recent clinical Candida isolates, recovered from patients’ specimens, against fluconazole. Totally 462 yeast isolates were analyzed, including the following species: 284 isolates of Candida albicans, 69 isolatesof C. tropicalis, 41 isolates of C. parapsilosis, 31 isolates of C. glabrata, 14 isolates of C. krusei, 11 isolates of C. guilliermondii and 10 isolates of Candida kefyr and 2 other yeasts. Susceptibility ranking to fluconazole obtained by all tested yeasts was: C. tropicalis>C. albicans>C. parapsilosi > C. kefyr>C. guilliermondii> C. glabrata>C.krusei. The majority (81%) of all tested yeast isolates were susceptible to fluconazole. There were seen statisticalsignificant differences between the MIC of all isolates (p< 0.05). Isolates of C. glabrata and C. krusei showed the highest rate of broth microdilution resistance among all tested isolates, but these only species represented 11.6% of all yeasts isolated from specimens in Yazd central laboratory. In order to identify any changes in the susceptibility patterns of fluconazole with the increased use of this antifungal agent, careful periodical surveillance testing was needed.