Isolation and Rapid identification of Candida species from the Oral cavity

CHROMagar Candida is a new differential culture medium that allows the isolation and presumptive identification of species of yeast of clinical importance. During the past two decades, there has been a significant increase in the prevalence of fungal infections caused by Candida species. The aim of the study was to isolate and identify Candida species from the oral cavity with CHROMagar Candida. This study was carried out in 30 patients with infections aged 21 to 90 years. Swabs samples were taken from oral cavity and were cultured directly on Sabouraud dextrose agar medium. In this study shows that CHROMagar Candida can easily identify four species of Candida on the basis of colonial color and morphology, and accurately differentiate between them i.e. Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, Candida tropicalis and Candida krusei. Results showed the prevalence of C.albicans (n = 21, 70%), C. glabrata (n = 5, 16.6%), C. krusei (n = 2, 6.7%), and C. tropicalis (n =2, 6.7%). In this investigation, CHROMagar produced light green colonies and were considered as Candida albicans, Pink with a darker mauve center colonies were identified as Candida glabrata, pink with pale borders colonies were identified as Candida krusei, and dark blue, purple diffusion colonies were identified as Candida tropicalis. CHROMagar is extremely useful in making a rapid presumptive identification of common yeast species. This capability plus the ability to detect mixed cultures of Candida species promises to improve and streamline the work flow in the mycology and clinical microbiology laboratory.