RESUMEN
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Trichosporon species are ubiquitous in nature which are associated with fatal opportunistic invasive infections, especially in immunocompromised patients. The present study aimed to evaluate the epidemiological and clinical details, as well as the antifungal susceptibility pattern of the patients with Trichosporon infections. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In total, 50 clinical isolates of Trichosporon species from various samples were included in this study. The samples were isolated over a period of 18 months from patients in a tertiary hospital in North India. The isolates were characterised phenotypically with Vitek MS (bioMérieux, France). Trichosporon spp. were isolated from urine (30%), nail (30%), tissue (16%), pleural fluid (14%), and sputum (5%). In total, majority of the isolates were of Trichosporon asahii (92%), followed by Trichosporon mucoides (6%), and Trichosporon ovoides (2%). It is noteworthy that most of the reported cases were from intensive care unit (34%). RESULTS: Intravenous catheters, antibiotics, and antifungal uptake were significantly associated risk factors with Trichosporon infection. All invasive isolates were observed to be resistant in vitro to caspofungin and exhibited high minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values against amphotericin B, fluconazole, and 5-flucytosine. The MICs for voriconazole and posaconazole were low. CONCLUSION: Trichosporonosis is being increasingly reported all around the world, including India. The results of this study highlighted the importance of early detection and treatment for this emerging yeast and also added to the ongoing surveillance for the antifungal susuceptibility pattern for this fungus.
RESUMEN
AIMS: Active screening for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) carriers remains a vital component of infection control policy in any health-care setting. The relative advantage of multiple anatomical site screening for detecting MRSA carriers is well recognized. However, this leads to increase in financial and logistical load in a developing world scenario. The objective of our study was to determine the sensitivity of MRSA screening of nose, throat, axilla, groin, perineum and the site of catheterization (central line catheter) individually among intensive care unit patients and to compare it with the sensitivity of multiple site screening. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Active surveillance of 400 patients was done to detect MRSA colonization; 6 sites-nose, throat, axilla, perineum, groin and site of catheter were swabbed. RESULT AND DISCUSSION: The throat swab alone was able to detect maximum number of MRSA (76/90) carriers, with sensitivity of 84.4%. Next in order of sensitivity was nasal swab, which tested 77.7% of MRSA colonized patients. When multiple sites are screened, the sensitivity for MRSA detection increased to 95%. CONCLUSIONS: We found that though throat represent the most common site of MRSA colonization, nose or groin must also be sampled simultaneously to attain a higher sensitivity.
RESUMEN
Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been recognized as one of the major pathogens in hospital as well as community settings. In India, the mean isolation rate of MRSA is 20-40â% and many studies have suggested an escalating rate of infections caused by this organism. Despite pharmaceutical and technological advancement, infections caused by MRSA still remain difficult to diagnose. The present study was undertaken to compare five phenotypic methods for the detection of MRSA. This involved examining 200 isolates of S. aureus by oxacillin disc diffusion, cefoxitin disc diffusion, oxacillin screen agar test, the latex agglutination test and growth on CHROMagar. PCR for mecA gene detection was taken as the gold standard. It was found that 35â% of all S. aureus infections were caused by MRSA. The cefoxitin disc diffusion method, as recommended by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, was found to be a reliable method for MRSA detection but it should be supplemented with some other method like latex agglutination, CHROMagar or oxacillin screen agar testing so that no MRSA is missed. We recommend that along with cefoxitin disc diffusion, another method, preferably latex agglutination, should be routinely used in all hospitals to detect MRSA.
