Yeasts isolated from frequently in-patients and out-patients

The paper is a part of a general mycological monitoring study of nosocomial infections. Differences in the species composition and drug resistance of fungi isolated from in-patients and out-patients prompted an analysis of this topic. The studies were conducted with fungi from the collection of the Department of Mycology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, that were isolated from the oral cavity, sputum, bronchoscopic fluid, anus and skin from 100 in-patients and 100 out-patients. Laboratory analyses, including species categorization of fungi, were performed according to routine mycological diagnostics. Drug sensitivity to fluconazole and nystatin was tested with the disc diffusion method. In the group of in-patients, a wider taxonomic diversity of fungi (12 species) was found in comparison with the out-patients (7 species) and 31 cases of multifocal infections were recorded, while in the second group the number of the latter was only six. In all patients, C. albicans were predominant, constituting the largest proportion in focal infections in all patients and in multifocal infections in the in-patients. In the latter, over a half of the examined individuals were resistant to fluconazole (C. glabrata and C. krusei – 80%, C. tropicalis and S. capsularis – 60%, C. guilliermondii – 50%) and nystatin (T. beigelii – 80%, C. krusei and C. tropicalis – 50%). Substantially lower drug resistance of fungi was recorded in the out-patients. The hospital environment is an abundant reservoir of different fungal species with significantly greater expansiveness and aggressiveness compared to the environment outside a hospital.