Purpose:

To evaluate the incidence and susceptibility to antifungals of other species of Candida than Candida albicans, recovered from Romanian population.

Material and methods:

Fifty-three oropharyngeal samples were included in the study. For identification, the colony appearance on Chromagar Candida medium, chlamidospores production and substrate assimilation profiles with API 20 C aux system were used. The fluconazole (FL) susceptibility assessment was conducted using Etest method and ATB Fungus (bio Merieux, France), was used to assess for susceptibility to six antifungals: nistatine (NIS), miconazole (MIC), econazole (ECO), ketoconazole (KET), amphotericine B (AMB) and 5-flucitosyne (5FC).

Results:

From 53 oral samples included in this study 65 Candida spp. isolates were recovered: 41 (63%) C. albicans and 24 (37%) other species. nine (13.8%) C. krusei, 4 (6.1%) C. kefyr, 3 C. glabrata, 2 C. dubliniensis, 2 C. norvegensis, 1 C. inconspicua,1 C. lusitaniae, 1 C. magnoliae, 1 C. tropicalis. From all non-albicans Candida isolates 12(50%) were recovered in mixture with Candida albicans. The antifungal susceptibility patterns for fluconazole were 54.1% (13) susceptible. 29.1% (7) S-DD, and 16.6% (4) resistent 9 all C. krusei isolates). 91.6% from all non-albicansCandida isolates were susceptible to ketoconazole, 75% to miconazole, 66.6% to econazole, 62.5% to 5-flucitosyne, 50% to nystatine and 45.8% to amphotericine B. The rest of isolates presented intermediate susceptibility to these agents. No isolates were resistant.

Conclusions:

The co-existence of C. albicans with other species of Candida is quite important (12.3% from all samples), and some problems in therapy could arise.

Ketoconazole followed by fluconazole seem to be the most reliable antifungals from all drugs tested against non- albicansCandida species recovered from Romanian population.