Determining the Frequency and Antifungal Drug Resistance Patterns of Candida Species Isolated from Patients with Vaginitis in Health and Treatment Centers in Zanjan City

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.