Candida species isolated from urine and vaginal samples from cancer patients treated at the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases (INEN), Lima, Peru. Fingerprinting of Candida albicans

Introduction: Candida albicans remains as the most frecuent isolated yeast in immunosuppressed patients. Random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis is used to evaluate similarities between strains of the same species and to associate particular genotypes to phenotypic characteristics of the isolates. Objective: To determine the genetic variability between strains of C. albicans isolated in urine and vaginal samples from cancer patients with urinary catheterism, hospitalized at the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases (INEN) in Lima. Material and Methods: In six months of surveillance, yeast strains from urine and vaginal swabs samples were searched phenotypically, these were characterizied according to conventional methods in medical mycology and antifungal susceptibility by agar diffusion method. DNA extracted from the strains of C. albicans was genotyped using a Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA RAPD method using three arbitrary primers independently, generating similarity dendrograms for analysis. Results: During the study period 15 strains of C. albicans and 2 of C. glabrata were isolated from 60 patients, urine 13 samples and 4 vaginal swab samples. All strains were susceptible to amphotericin B, itraconazole, fluconazole and voriconazole. The dendrogram showed genetic variability among isolates of C. albicans and recorded two branches with a similarity index (Sat) above 90% between five strains related by sample type and hospitalization service, suggesting a possible outbreak. Conclusions: This study showed genetic variability between strains of C. albicans, and a possible outbreak of yeasts in patients with cancer treated at INEN in Lima, Peru.