firoozeh kakavand

The management of Candida-related infectious diseases and the recognition of drug susceptibility patterns in each region depend on local epidemiological studies and population structure of each region. The present study was carried out with the aim of identifying the common species associated with VVC and determining their antifungal susceptibility profile.

In this study, 140 clinical isolates of Candida species were collected from people with vaginitis referred to a number of health centers in Zanjan, Iran. Antifungal susceptibility tests for fluconazole, itraconazole and ketoconazole was performed by broth microdilution method, and the results were statistically analyzed using SPSS software.

Overall 41 Candida species were isolated from vaginal discharge samples. C. glabrata was the most frequent with 23 isolates (56.1%). Candida isolates showed high resistance to azoles, so that 11 isolates (26.8%) were resistant to fluconazole. Also, the resistance to itraconazole and ketoconazole was found to be 58.5% and 65.9%, respectively.

In this study C. glabrata had the highest prevalence and it shows the change in the pattern of Candida infections towards non-albicans species. The occurrence of high drug resistance to azoles is one of the problems facing vaginal candidiasis, which leads to recurrent and treatment-resistant infections.

Genotyping of pathogenic microorganisms is important for epidemiological studies and the adoption of appropriate strategies to control infectious diseases. In this regard, the present study aimed to genotype Candida albicans strains isolated from vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) patients using combined ABC type (25SrDNA) and repetitive sequence (RPS) typing systems. using combined typing systems of ABC type (25SrDNA) and repetitive sequence (RPS).

In total, 140 patients with VVC were investigated. Vaginal discharges were collected on Sabouraud dextrose agar and identified by CHROMagar. After species identification, a polymerase chain reaction system targeting 25S rDNA as well as ALT repeats in the RPS was designed to determine C. albicans genotypes. The dendrogram was constructed by zero-one matrix data based on the combination of ABC and RPS typing systems. Statistical analysis of data was performed in SPSS software (version 23).

In total, 41 (29.3%) Candida isolates were obtained from 140 VVC patients. The most common Candida species that were identified included C. glabrata (56.1%) and C. albicans (39%). Genotype A3 with five isolates (31.25%) had the highest frequency, followed by B2/3 with three isolates (18.3%), A3/4, C3/4, and B3/4 with two isolates (12.5%), and C2/3 and C3 with one isolate (6.25%), respectively. No significant association was found between the genotypes and antifungal resistance (P<0.05).

The results showed that non-albicans Candida species are more prevalent in VVC patients, compared to C. albicans. The results also indicated that ABC and RPS typings are useful for rapid genotyping and differentiation of C. albicans isolates in regional and small-scale studies.