ABSTRACT
Objective: Candidiasis is the most common fungal infection in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) - infected individuals. As there is sparse data on the oral <I>Candida</I> species in HIV- infected individuals in India, we characterized <I>Candida</I> species from the oral cavity in two cohorts - with and without HIV infection and with presence or absence of clinical oral candidiasis, in Chennai, South India.<br>Methods: Saliva samples were collected from 147 consecutive study participants by the oral rinse technique. <I>Candidal</I> species were isolated by culturing specimens on Sabouraud‘s dextrose agar. The pure cultures so derived were speciated using the commercially available ID32C system, and the results were interpreted using APILAB plus software.<br>Results: In the HIV seropositive group, the most commonly isolated candida species was <I>C.albicans</I> (86%) followed by <I>C.tropicalis</I> (23%), <I>C.guilliermondi</I> (6%), <I>C.krusei</I> (5%) and others (4%). In the healthy cohort without clinical candidiasis, C.tropicalis was the most commonly isolated species.<br>Conclusion: There appears to be a marked variation in oral <I>Candida</I> species found in HIV-seropositive and seronegative individuals in India. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to identify oral Candida species in a South Indian population.