Time to positivity of blood cultures causing candidemia and its relation to mortality.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Early diagnosis of candidemia is of vital importance in reducing mortality and morbidity. The main objective of the study was to determine the TTP (Time to Positivity) of different species of causing bloodstream infection and to see whether TTP can help differentiate which is frequently fluconazole resistant from Fluconazole sensitive .

MATERIALS AND METHODS

TTP (Time to positivity) and AAT (Appropriate Antifungal therapy) were noted for Blood cultures becoming positive for . Presence of Risk factors for candidemia like prolonged ICU stay, neutropenia, Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN), use of steroids , broad spectrum antibiotics, use of Central Venous Catheter, Foleys catheter were also analyzed.

RESULTS

The most frequent isolates were , and The median TTP for all isolates in our study was 34 hours. The diagnostic sensitivity of TTP for detecting and in patients with candidemia was 88% and 85% respectively. TTP showed that there was no difference in survival between TTP <24 hrs. and > 24hrs. Initiation of antifungal therapy <24 hours and > 24hrs after onset of candidemia had no association with survival.

CONCLUSION

Longer TTP maybe predictive of while shorter TTP may be predictive of In our study we found that fluconazole resistant causing blood stream infection is quite unlikely if the TTP of the isolate is <48hrs.