Shokoofeh Dehghani - Bachelor's Degree , Department of Microbiology , Islamic Azad University , Zanjan Branch , Zanjan , Iran

Invasive fungal infections are major cause of morbidity and mortality in ICU patients. The latter is due to increased antifungal resistance and limited antifungal drugs. This study was performed with the purpose of gaining insight into changing patterns of candida species and antifungal susceptibilities involved in candida infections in ICU patients.This was a literature review study. All studies in PubMed that were accessible and in the English language starting from 2010 to now were included in the study. Search terms used were epidemiology, candidiasis, ICU.Twelve studies were selected by inclusion criteria to be reviewed for this study. Two studies had been performed in surgical ICU’s and ten in regular ICU’s. Six studies were based on blood cultures that were positive for candida species. The most common isolated candida species were C. albicans, C. parasilosis, C. glabrata and C. tropicalis with C. albicans being the most common in 10 studies. In both surgical ICU’s the most common candida pathogens were in order of decreasing prevalence C. albicans, C. parasilosis and C. glabrata. Among five of six studies performed with blood cultures positive for candida species the most common pathogens in decreasing order were C. albicans and C. tropicalis. Resistance patterns are shown in the table were fluconazole resistance is common and one study reports of patient with C. parasilopsis resistant to anidulafungin and micafungin in Spain. Yet, all studies did not report resistant patterns to antifungals used for treatment. Some regional pattern in the species was observed with C. tropicalis grown from blood culture being the most common in an ICU in India and C. parasilopsis most common in an ICU in Italy. This study agrees with review studies regarding common species of candida responsible for pathogenicity in clinical cases

Intensive Care Unit, Invasive Candidiasis, Epidemiology