[Monitoring the occurrence of fungi in the air and environment at the Hemato-Oncology Clinic of the Faculty Hospital in Brno-Bohunice].
OBJECTIVE
The air can be one of the ways of transmission of fungal infections in hospital environment. This is why we examined the occurence of fungi in the air of units where patients with hemato-oncology disorders, naturally predisposed to fungal infections, are hospitalized.


METHODS
We performed the search at four sampling sites with different grade of reverse isolation. (unit for allogeneis transplantation, unit for autologous transplantation, intensive care unit and standard three-bed room. Air samples were collected by a special instrument for aeroscopic sampling (Biotest RCS Plus) during two consecutive periods in 2002, in summer (June - July) and in fall (November - December). and compared with each other.


RESULTS
Forty-four samples of air were collected, which yielded 147 fungal isolates, representing 41 genera. The growth of fungi was recorded in 34 samples of air (77.3 %), 10 samples were free of fungi. Yeasts were not taken into consideration in this study. The isolates belonged mostly to the genera Cladosporium (33,9 %), Penicillium (23,9 %), Aspergillus (12,8 %), Acremonium (5,6 %) and Alternaria (5,6 %), the other genera represented 18,2 % altogether.


CONCLUSIONS
Increasing occurence of fungi was found at the unit for autologous transplantation and in the standard room. The results led to reconsideration of the daily regime and of environmental factors in both units and relevant preventive measures were proposed.
Drevová
Jana
J
Department of Preventive Medicine Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic. drevova@zuhk.cz
Hanuláková
Dana
D
Kolárová
Marie
M
Rácil
Zdenek
Z
Mayer
Jirí
J
D000391:Air Microbiology; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D005658:Fungi / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D019337:Hematologic Neoplasms; D006757:Hospital Units; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans