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Candida parapsilosis fungemia in neonates: genotyping results suggest healthcare workers hands as source, and review of published studies

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Abstract

An outbreak of Candida parapsilosis fungemia involving 17 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients was studied. There were 14 blood culture and nine colonizing isolates from other sites available. The hands of NICU healthcare workers (HCW) yielded eight isolates. Screening of the isolates by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) method showed only three profiles. Typing by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) revealed all blood isolates were RFLP subtype VII-1. Among the nine infant colonizing isolates, there were four different RFLP subtypes; four of the isolates were subtype VII-1. Seven of the eight isolates from HCW were RFLP subtype VII-1. The majority of infant colonizers were not found in the blood, suggesting a possible direct spread of the epidemic subtype VII-1 strain from HCW hands to infant blood. The source of the infant colonizing strains is unclear, but non-VII-1 strains may be largely of maternal origin and VII-1 strains from HCW. These findings reinforce prior studies that have implicated HCW hands as the source of nosocomial, including neonatal, fungemia.

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Abbreviations

HCW:

Healthcare workers

NICU:

Neonatal intensive care unit

RFLP:

Restriction fragment length polymorphism

RAPD:

Random amplified polymorphic DNA

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Infectious Diseases, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, California Institute for Medical Research, 751 South Bascom Avenue, San Jose, CA, 95128, USA

    Eveline C. van Asbeck, Angela N. Markham, Karl V. Clemons & David A. Stevens

  2. Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Eveline C. van Asbeck, Angela N. Markham, Karl V. Clemons & David A. Stevens

  3. Eijkman-Winkler Institute for Medical and Clinical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Eveline C. van Asbeck

  4. Chang Gung Children’s Hospital, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Kweishan, Taiwan

    Yhu-Chering Huang

Authors
  1. Eveline C. van Asbeck
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  2. Yhu-Chering Huang
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  3. Angela N. Markham
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  4. Karl V. Clemons
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  5. David A. Stevens
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karl V. Clemons.

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van Asbeck, E.C., Huang, YC., Markham, A.N. et al. Candida parapsilosis fungemia in neonates: genotyping results suggest healthcare workers hands as source, and review of published studies. Mycopathologia 164, 287–293 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11046-007-9054-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11046-007-9054-3

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