Ravinder kaur
Hardinge medical college, India
Title: An Etiological and Antifungal Profile of Candidemia in Children
Biography:
Ravinder kaur is Director of Hardinge medical college and was Head of Mycology Division in the Deptt. of Microbiology at Maulana azad medical college. She involved in Diagnosis and Research in Fungal Opportunistic infections in Immunocompromised, Standardized Molecular identification of fungi. She is the Principal Investigator in 28 Research projects & Co-investigator in 35 Research projects in Mycology and Microbiology. She Published more than 70 papers in different International & National Journals.
Abstract:
Background: Candidemia represents a major challenge among healthcare-related infections causing increased mortality rates and emergence of antifungal drug resistance, especially in immunocompromised and severely ill patients. It needs an urgent intervention to salvage patients. Aim: To isolate and identify Candida species and to evaluate their antifungal susceptibility profile from blood stream infections in paediatric patients. Materials & Methods: Fungal cultures from blood recovered positive for yeasts were subcultured on Sabouraud dextrose agar. Suspected purified colonies of Candida were further identified upto species level by both conventional and automated techniques. Conventional identification was done by germ tube test, pigmentation on HiChrome Candida agar, morphology on Corn Meal Agar and sugar assimilation test. Automated identification was done by VITEK-2 YST ID. Antifungal susceptibility of isolates was evaluated using agar based Etest method for Fluconazole, Voriconazole and Caspofungin on Mueller-Hinton agar supplemented with 2% glucose. Results: Total of 43 isolates of Candida species were recovered from blood samples. Non-Albicans Candida species were responsible for 88.30% cases; whereas 11.60% of cases were caused by C.albicans. C.tropicalis (39%) was the commonest isolate recovered in candidemia patients followed by C.parapsilosis (18%), C.albicans (12%), C.glabrata (12%), C.kefyr (9%), C.pelliculosa (5%), and C.krusei (5%). AFS results revealed Caspofungin demonstrated good activity against all Candida spp. C.tropicalis followed by C.parapsilosis and C.glabrata demonstrated high resistance to fluconazole. For voriconazole, maximum resistance was shown by C.tropicalis as compared to others.