Prevalence of Candida Species and its Antifungal Susceptibility Isolated from Blood Culture at Tertiary Care Hospital, Ahmedabad, India

Candida is the yeast like fungi which normally exist within mouth, throat, intestine, genital and urinary tract of human being (Chander et al., 2009). Candidemia is defined as at least 1 blood culture bottle positive for Candida species and other sign of blood stream infection. Episodes were considered separate if they occur 1 month apart or were caused by different species (Chen et al., 2003; Sandven et al., 2006). Candidemia is a life threatening fungal infection associated with mortality rate of 38% and prolongs hospital stay by as much as 30 days (Wey et al., 1998). Candida species infection are among the four most common causes for hospital acquired infection, catheter associated UTI and blood stream infection (Zaoutis et al., 2005). Candidemia is a manifestation of invasive candidiasis that could have originated in a variety of organs, whereas for others, candidemia originated from an infected indwelling catheter (Frikdin, 2005). The spectrum of Candidemia has changed International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 6 (2017) pp. 884-892 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com