Evaluation of antifungal drug resistance among Candida albicans isolated from clinical specimens

Candida albicans is a dimorphic fungus that causes various diseases in humans and animals. Antifungals mainly used to treat infections caused by this species are azoles, echinocandins, and polyenes; however, these drugs tend not to be successful. The emergence of acquired drug resistance among prevalent fungal pathogens restricts treatment options, which alters patient management. A total of 151 clinical specimens were collected from immunocompromised patients suffering from underlying diseases including cancer, diabetes, and thalassemia. All the collected specimens were cultured on yeast selective media and subjected to a microbiological diagnostic procedure to isolate and identify Candida albicans isolates to the species level depending on the morphological characteristics, and the antifungal susceptibility profile was evaluated by disk diffusion method. From the total 151 clinical specimens included in the present study 111 (73.50%) specimens were positive for yeast growth, among them the most predominant species was C. albicans at 64 (57.65%). There was a difference in the prevalence of yeast species isolates according to the patient’s gender, which was higher in females 76 (68.46%) than in males 35 (31.53%), and according to the age group, the highest prevalence of infection was among the adults than the other age groups. The results of the antifungal susceptibility test showed that from the 64 C. albicans isolates, 16 (25%) were multidrug-resistant (MDR) isolates that were non-susceptible to at least one antifungal drug in two different drug classes, while the other isolates varied from non-susceptible to one drug class to susceptible to all the drugs tested in the current study. According to the data obtained by this study, it was concluded that there was a high prevalence of fungal infections caused by the pathogenic yeast species C. albicans isolates especially among adult female immunocompromised patients, and there was a concerning multidrug resistance among a concordable percentage of these isolates towards the most common antifungal agents that have been used in the treatment of such infections.