THE MEDICALLY IMPORTANT YEASTS PRESENT IN CLINICAL SPECIMENS

In an effort to determine the yeast species present in clinical specimens obtained from patients attending a busy Saudi hospital, the present study was undertaken. More than 1614 yeasts were isolated in culture from pathologic specimens of over 1303 patients with diverse clinical conditions. Organisms identified in 22 species of eight genera included: Candida albicans, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis, C. krusei, C. lipolytica, C. guilliermondii, C. pseudotropicalis, C. pinotolopesii, C. humicola, C. stellatoidea, C. lusitaniae, Torulopsis glabrata, T. inconspicua, T. candida, Trichosporon beigelii, T. capitatum, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Cryptococcus neoformans, C. albidus, Rhodotorula glutinis, Hansenula anomala and Prototheca zopfii. The details of specimen types yielding these yeasts in culture are presented in the text. The most frequently isolated yeast was C. albicans, followed by T. glabrata, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis, T. inconspicua, C. krusei, S. cerevisiae, T. candida, and T. beigelii. Twenty isolates of six species were recovered from blood of which C. albicans was also the most common. Cryptococcus neoformans was found causing cryptococcal meningitis being isolated from the CSF of an 8-year-old female patient. Future studies assessing the incidence of yeast infections in each homogeneous group of patients are recommended.