title: Rapid identification of yeast isolates from clinical specimens in critically ill trauma ICU patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose was to evaluate the performance of a commercially available chromogenic Candida speciation media and the Vitek 2 ID system for the identification of medically important yeasts and yeast-like organisms in a routine clinical microbiology laboratory.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 429 non duplicate, consecutive yeast strains were included during the 3.5-year study period. The performance of the Vitek 2 ID system and a chromogenic agar medium was evaluated against the gold standard conventional phenotypic and biochemical identification method for speciation of yeast isolates from trauma patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Candida tropicalis (64%) was the most common Candida species, followed by Candida albicans (14%), Candida rugosa (7%), and Candida parapsilosis (6.5%). Of the 429 isolates, 183 could be identified to species level by all the three methods. Agreement between the chromogenic agar method and conventional methods was 80% for Candida tropicalis, 100% for Candida rugosa, 89% for Candida albicans, and 77% for Candida parapsilosis. Vitek 2 had lower sensitivity, with agreement of 49% for Candida tropicalis, 100% for Candida rugosa, 39% for Candida albicans, and 31% for Candida parapsilosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Thus, in long-term ICU patients, an increasing trend of isolating nonalbicans Candida spp. continues. The chromogenic agar medium is a convenient and economic method to identify commonly isolated species in busy clinical microbiology laboratories.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology (Laboratory Medicine), Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Neetu
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jain
authors.forename: Purva
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mathur
authors.forename: Mahesh Chandra
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Misra
authors.forename: Bijayini
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Behera
authors.forename: Immaculata
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Xess
authors.forename: Satya Priya
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Sharma