ABSTRACT
Background: Candidemia causing increased mortality rates and emergence of antifungal drug resistance needs an urgent intervention to salvage immunocompromised and severely ill patients. This study aimed to isolate and identify Candida species and evaluate their antifungal susceptibility profile from blood stream infections in children.Methods: Fungal cultures from blood recovered positive for yeasts were subcultured on Sabouraud dextrose agar. Suspected purified colonies of Candida were confirmed and identified upto species level by both conventional and automated techniques. Antifungal susceptibility testing of isolates was evaluated using agar based E-test 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 accounted for 88.30% of cases; whereas 11.60% of cases were caused by C. albicans, C. tropicalis (39%) was the most frequent 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%). Antifungal susceptibility results revealed Caspofungin demonstrated good activity against all Candida spp. C. parapsilosis followed by C. tropicalis and C. glabrata demonstrated high resistance to fluconazole. For voriconazole, maximum resistance was shown by C. tropicalis as compared to others.Conclusions: Candidemia is a threatening prognostic sign in children and an important entity in our hospital. Identification of Candidaspecies and antifungal sensitivity testing is a must to select a suitable and effective antifungal therapy to abrogate the emerging resistance to antifungals.