Abstract
Candida biofilms on indwelling devices are an increasing problem in patients treated at intensive care units. The goal of this study was to examine the occurrence and frequency of these biofilms. A total of 172 catheters were collected from 105 male and 67 female patients (the age range of both patient groups was from 3 weeks to 98 years old). The catheters were incubated on blood agar plates and the resulting yeast colonies were subsequently identified. Furthermore, pieces of catheters were fixed, dried and sputter coated with gold for investigation with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Yeasts were recovered from significantly more catheters obtained from men than from women (χ2: n = 67; P < 0.01). In SEM, 56.4% catheters turned out to be positive for biofilm formation. Again catheters from male patients were statistically significant (χ2: n = 40; P < 0.01) more often positive than those from women. Candida albicans (71.1%) was the most common species isolated from the catheters, followed by C. glabrata (10.3%), C. parapsilosis (8.2%) and C. tropicalis (5.2%). Based on the results of this investigation, the epidemiology of Candida biofilms on indwelling devices seems to be a promising target for future investigations.
Acknowledgement
This study was financed in part by the Hygienefonds of the Medical University Graz. Parts of this study were presented as a poster at the 9th ASM Conference on Candida and Candidiasis, NJ, USA.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
This paper was first published online on iFirst on 9 March 2009.