ACTA FAC MED NAISS 2008; 25 (4): 189-193

 

Original article

 

RECURRENT INTESTINAL CANDIDOSIS 

 

Suzana Tasic1,2
Natasa Miladinovic-Tasic1,2
Jovana Djordjevic1
Dragan Zdravkovic2,
Drenka Paunovic-Todosijevic2


1Faculty of Medicine University of Nis, Serbia
2Public Health Institute Nis, Serbia

 

  SUMMARY

 

The prevalence of recurrent intestinal candidosis (RIC) has been increasing in recent years.
The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of some Candida species in etiology of RIC and to examine their antifungal susceptibility.
The study involved 70 patients with RIC. The patients were selected according to criteria that in the previous six months they had minimum two microbiological findings of the same Candida species in feces, as well as the symptoms and clinical signs of the digestive tract infection (nausea, disgust, borborygmus, bloating, mushy stool, appearance of mucus in feces). Candida spp. were isolated using a standard procedure. Candida albicans was (C. albicans) identified from other species by the germination test application. Non-albicans species were differentiated using a commercial CandiFast-test (Mycoplasma-International, France).
After using the tests for yeast differentiation, C. albicans was found to be the most frequent cause of recurrent intestinal tract candidosis (45 patients - 64.29%). Other species were found in a significantly smaller number of patients (C. glabrata-4, C. crusei-4, C. kefyr-3, C. parapsilosis-1, C. guillermondil-1, C. tropicalis-1, C. lusiniae-1). The isolated yeasts showed good susceptibility to amphotericin B, nystatine, 5-fluorocytosine and ketoconazole, while higher percent of isolated species was resistant to econazole, miconazole and fluconazole.
Species C. albicans is the most common cause of RIC.

Key words: recurrent intestinal candidosis, antifungal susceptibility, Candida spp.