Oral Candida flora from Brazilian human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients in the highly active antiretroviral therapy era

• Main Authors: NR Melo, H Taguchi, J Jorge, RJ Pedro, OP Almeida, K Fukushima, K Nishimura, M Miyaji
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde 2004-06-01
• Series: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.
• Subjects: Candida; human immunodeficiency virus; antifungal drug; Brazil
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02762004000400014

One of the main opportunistic fungal infections amongst immunocompromised individuals is oral candidosis, which has been found in up to 90% of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients. This study employed yeasts isolated from the saliva and oral cavities of 114 HIV-infected patients living in Campinas, São Paulo. Of the isolates, 57.8% were identified as Candida albicans and 42.1% as non-C. albicans. The latter isolates were subsequently identified as C. krusei (7.5%), C. lusitaniae (5.2%), C. tropicalis (4.6%), C. parapsilosis (4.6%), C. glabrata (2.8%), C. kefyr (1.7%), C. guilliermondii (1.7%), C. intermedia (1.1%), C. norvegensis (0.5%), and Rhodotorula rubra (1.7%). Susceptibility of the isolates to amphotericin B, fluconazole, miconazole, and itraconazole was also determined by a microdilution method adopted by the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards. The isolates demonstrated various susceptibilities to the antifungal agents. In particular 29 C. albicans and 13 non-C. albicans isolates showed low susceptibility to FLCZ (> 64 µg/ml). This study revealed huge diversity of Candida species, in particular the increasing emergence of non-C. albicans associated with the oral flora of HIV-infected patients.