Clusters of patients with candidaemia due to genotypes of Candida albicans and Candida parapsilosis: Differences in frequency between hospitals

The presence of clusters (identical genotypes infecting different patients) suggests patient-to-patient transmission or a common source for strains. We report the results of a genotyping study based on microsatellite markers of Candida albicans (n = 179) and Candida parapsilosis (n = 76) causing candidaemia, to assess and compare the percentage of patients grouped in clusters during the study period (January 2010 to December 2012). The study was performed in two large tertiary hospitals in Madrid, Spain. We detected 145 C. albicans genotypes (21 in clusters) and 63 C. parapsilosis genotypes (seven in clusters). Clusters involved two to seven patients each. Most of the clusters in the two centres involved two patients for both species, but the number of patients included in each cluster differed between hospitals. Considering both species, the percentage of patients per cluster ranged from 19% to 38% (p < 0.05) in Hospital A and B respectively. Up to 2.9% of genotypes were present in both hospitals. Clusters of C. albicans and C. parapsilosis genotypes causing candidaemia differed between hospitals, suggesting differences in strain transmission. Occasionally, the same genotypes were found in patients admitted to different hospitals located in the same city.Research at Gregorio Marañón hospital was supported by grants number PI11/00167 and PI14/00740 from Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (FIS; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Plan Nacional de I+D+I 2008-2011, FEDER support) and grant number IISGM-PI_JVG-2014 from Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón. P Escribano is contracted by Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón. J Guinea is supported by a Miguel Servet contract (CP09/00055) from FIS. LJ Marcos-Zambrano is supported by a pre-doctoral PFIS grant (FI12/00265) from FIS. Research at the Microbiology Department of Ramón y Cajal University Hospital was funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III of Spain, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (A Way To Achieve Europe programme; Spanish Network for Research in Infectious Diseases, grant REIPI RD12/0015). Research at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore was funded by an FIRB grant from the Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MIUR) No. RBFR100FLV_002

Clusters of patients with candidaemia due to genotypes of Candida albicans and Candida parapsilosis: differences in frequency between hospitals

The presence of clusters (identical genotypes infecting different patients) suggests patient-to-patient transmission or a common source for strains. We report the results of a genotyping study based on microsatellite markers of Candida albicans (n = 179) and Candida parapsilosis (n = 76) causing candidaemia, to assess and compare the percentage of patients grouped in clusters during the study period (January 2010 to December 2012). The study was performed in two large tertiary hospitals in Madrid, Spain. We detected 145 C. albicans genotypes (21 in clusters) and 63 C. parapsilosis genotypes (seven in clusters). Clusters involved two to seven patients each. Most of the clusters in the two centres involved two patients for both species, but the number of patients included in each cluster differed between hospitals. Considering both species, the percentage of patients per cluster ranged from 19% to 38% (p <0.05). Up to 2.9% of genotypes were present in both hospitals. Clusters of C. albicans and C. parapsilosis genotypes causing candidaemia differed between hospitals, suggesting differences in strain transmission. Occasionally, the same genotypes were found in patients admitted to different hospitals located in the same city