IN VITRO SUSCEPTIBILITY OF Candida Spp. ISOLATED FROM CLINICAL SPECIMENS AGAINST SOME ANTIFUNGAL AGENTS

We evaluated the in vitro activity of ketoconazole (KET), fluconazole (FLU), itraconazole (ITRA), amphotericin B (AmpB), flucytosine (FCU) in comparison to voriconazole (VOR) against Candida spe-cies isolated from blood cultures. The most common species of identified Candida were C. albicans (71), followed by C. parapsilosis (16), C. glabrata (12) C. tropicalis (9), C. kefyr (8) and one of C. lustaniae, C. spherical, C. sake, C. lambria respectively. NCCLS M 27-A method was used to evaluate the activity of KET, FLU, ITRA, AmpB, FCU and VOR. The MICs of the strains were evaluated by RPMI 1640 medium with microdilu-tion method. There were no isolates of tested Candida spp. resistant to KET, ITRA, FCU, AmpB and VOR. Only two of C. albicans isolates were resistant to FLU (MIC; ≥32µg/ml). Intermediate resistant appeared in 17.5 % isolates to KET and FLU, 8.3 % isolates to ITRA. Among 120 Candida isolates were found high-ly susceptible to KET (MIC;≤8µg/ml) followed by VOR (MIC;≤0.03µg/ml), ITRA (MIC;≤0.125µg/ml) FCU (MIC;≤4µg/ml) AmpB (MIC;<1µg/ml), and FLU (MIC; ≤8µg/ml) so FCU, AmpB and VOR were each more active than KET, FLU, and ITRA