Genetic Relatedness AmongCandida tropicalisIsolates From Sporadic Cases of Fungemia in Two University Hospitals in Korea

Abstract

AbstractObjective:To compare the epidemiology and genetic relatedness ofCandida tropicalisisolates causing bloodstream infection (BSI) in two hospitals.Setting:Two tertiary-care hospitals in Korea.Methods:A retrospective molecular epidemiologic analysis using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was performed with 49C. tropicalisisolates from sporadic cases of BSI. The isolates were collected from 27 patients at Chonnam National University Hospital (CUH) during a 6-year period and 22 patients at Asan Medical Center (AMC) during a 2-year period.Results:Based on the PFGE patterns, the average similarity value (SAB) for the 27 isolates from CUH was 0.84 ± 0.08, which was significantly higher than that for the 22 isolates from AMC (0.78 ± 0.06;P< .001). Of the 49 strains from patients at the 2 hospitals, 9 isolates were placed into 3 subtypes with SABvalues of 1.0, which indicated that they were identical. All 9 of these strains were isolated from CUH patients, and each type strain was isolated sporadically during a period ranging from 4 months to 3 years. On comparison of the clinical characteristics of the patients of the 2 hospitals, the CUH strains were isolated more frequently from non-neutropenic patients and patients with central venous catheter–related fungemia; cases from CUH had a better outcome than those from AMC (P< .05).Conclusions:These data show that the clinical and epidemiologic characteristics ofC. tropicalisfungemia may differ markedly among hospitals and that some cases ofC. tropicalisfungemia may be caused by endemic strains within a hospital.