spp.: the burden of a microorganism in a microbiology department.

UNLABELLED

There is no precise information available on the entire workload of isolating a specific microorganism in a clinical microbiology laboratory, and the costs associated with it have not been specifically estimated. In this descriptive retrospective study conducted at the microbiology department of a general teaching hospital from January 2021 to December 2022, we assessed the workload associated with identifying species in all types of clinical samples and patients. Costs were estimated from data obtained from the hospital's finance department and microbiology laboratory cost records. In 2 years, 1,008,231 samples were processed at our microbiology department, of which 8,775 had one or more spp. isolates (9,683 total isolates). Overall, 5,151 samples with spp. were identified from 2,383 inpatients. We isolated spp. from 515.3 samples/100,000 population/year and from 92 samples/1,000 hospital admissions/year. By sample type, 90.8% were superficial, mainly mucosal. Only 9.1% spp. were isolated from deep, usually sterile, samples, being mostly from ordinarily sterile fluids. was the main species (58.5%) identified, followed by complex, , and . In admitted patients, the incidences of samples with spp. isolates were 302.7 samples/100,000 population/year and 54 samples/1,000 admissions/year. The average cost of isolating and identifying spp. was estimated at 25€ per culture-positive sample. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to gage the workload and costs of spp. isolation at a hospital microbiology department. These data can help assess the burden and significance of isolation at other institutions and also help design measures for streamlining.

IMPORTANCE

We believe that this work is of interest because at present, there is no really accurate information available on the total workload involved in isolating a specific microorganism in a clinical microbiology laboratory. The costs related to this have also not been described. We have described the unrestricted workload of Candida spp. in all types of samples for all types of species and patients. We believe that this information would be necessary to collect and share this information as well as to collect it in a standardized way to know the current situation of Candida spp. workload in all clinical microbiology laboratories.