CHROMagar Candida (CHROMagar, France) was evaluated as a medium for the presumptive identification and isolation of yeasts using 1,537 isolates of medically important yeasts, including 970 Candida albicans, 165 Candida parapsilosis, 131 Candida glabrata, 62 Candida guilliermondii, 35 Candida krusei, 32 Candida tropicalis, 31 Rhodotorula rubra, 23 Trichosporon spp. (17 Trichosporon beigelii), 17 Candida famata, 16 Candida pelliculosa, 10 Pichia etchelsii, 10 Saccharomyces cerevisiae, 8 Candida lusitaniae, 7 Cryptococcus spp., and 20 isolates of other Candida spp. After 48 h of incubation at 37 degrees C, the sensitivity and specificity were, respectively, 99% and 100% for Candida albicans, 93.8% and 99.1% for Candida tropicalis, and 100% and 100% for Candida krusei. In addition to colony color, other colony characteristics were important for identification of some species, such as rough colonies in Candida krusei isolates or the halo around the colonies of Candida tropicalis. A great variety of colors was observed among species other than Candida albicans, Candida tropicalis, and Candida krusei. For identification purposes, CHROMagar Candida medium has an accuracy similar to that of germ-tube tests and chlamydospore development tests for Candida albicans and to that of the ATB ID32C kit (API, bioMérieux, France) for Candida tropicalis and Candida krusei.

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End-of-life in cancer patients was diagnosed too late. The quality of care in palliative care units and by home hospitalization service was better than that in conventional hospitalization. Nevertheless, there were areas for improvement in the three modalities of care.

A study of the antibiotypes of 764 isolates of the genera Candida and Torulopsis from different clinical specimens is reported. The typing method was based on the susceptibility results obtained by the standardized and partially automated kit ATB-Fungus (API-bioMérieux), giving to each strain a code of six figures, according to these criteria: susceptibility to 5-fluorocytosine, amphotericin B, nystatin, miconazole, econazole, and ketoconazole. Candida albicans serotypes were determined by the Candida Check test (Iatron, Japan). Twenty-six antibiotypes were found in C. albicans (482 isolates), 21 types in serotype A, and 15 in serotype B strains. Candida parapsilosis (115 isolates) was divided into 11 antibiotypes, Torulopsis glabrata (53 isolates) into five, Candida guilliermondii (36 isolates) into 10 and Candida tropicalis (31 isolates) into eight. Depending on the sample origin, 000000 (susceptibility to all the antifungals tested) was the predominant C. albicans antibiotype (92.9% of blood isolates, 41.2% of vaginal isolates, 33.3% of respiratory isolates, isolates, 31.01% or oral and digestive tract isolates, and 25.0% of nail and skin isolates). No predominant antibiotypes were found in strains from respiratory tract, skin ad nails. A reproducibility close to 99% was found with the test. Simplicity and standardization could make this method useful for typing Candida and Torulopsis isolates.

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