SPECIES IDENTIFICATION OF CANDIDA ISOLATES IN VARIOUS CLINICAL SAMPLES.

Candida species especially non albicans Candida are increasingly being isolated from clinical specimens. The aim of our study was to detect the clinical distribution of Candida species in various clinical samples in a tertiary care hospital. A total of 115 Candida species were isolated from various clinical specimens submitted to Microbiology laboratory from different units of a tertiary care centre, Aurangabad Maharashtra from January 2014 to December 2014 using conventional yeast identification method after the approval from institutional ethical committee. The percentage of isolation of non albicans Candida species was 59.1% and that of C. albicans was 40.9%. The predominant species among non albicans Candida species isolated were C. tropicalis (40%) followed by C. guilliermondii (10.43%), C. krusei (4.34%), C. glabrata (2.60%), C. kefyr and C. parapsilosis (0.87%) each. As it is possible to predict the sensitivity pattern of each Candida species with high accuracy, the accurate species identification of Candida is important.