Contribution of the chromogenic medium CHROMagar® Candida in mycological diagnosis of yeasts

The incidence of invasive candidiasis has increased dramatically over the last decades due to a larger number of patients at risk. The diagnosis remains difficult as the clinical presentation is not specific and the biological diagnosis usually takes several days to become positive. We propose in this work through a prospective study to evaluate the contribution of a chromogenic medium CHROMagar (R) (Becton-Dickinson) in the mycological diagnosis of Candida. We selected 680 samples from patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit for epidemiological surveillance over a period of 11 weeks. We treated samples by culture on Sabouraud and on CHROMagar (R). The species identification was performed by chlamydosporulation test and carbohydrate assimilation tests. We found that the CHROMagar (R) Candida evaluated in our work was a valuable tool in the primary culture in differentiating the most frequently isolated yeast species and in better detection of mixed cultures. (C) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.