Candida species isolated from human infections from Tunisian and Portuguese patients: Molecular identification and in vitro antifungal susceptibility assessment

There is an increasing awareness worldwide with the high morbidity and mortality rates among different groups of human patients and animals caused by fungal infections, especially from resistant strains of Candida spp. Epidemiological studies have identified risk factors associated with antifungal drug resistance, like haematological malignancies, prolonged neutropenia or immune depression. Rapid and sensitive fungal identification and antifungal susceptibility testing are essential to guide physicians in selecting more appropriated antifungal therapies. We present here an overall strategy for detection and identification of Candida spp. by the one-enzyme restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) PCR-based technique and a simple and standardized diffusion-disk method for sensitivity testing. This combined method achieved high sensitivity and specificity of detection, allied to rapid, simple and sensitive drug susceptibility assessment among Portuguese and Tunisian clinical isolates.