Objective: Candida parapsilosis species complex is the second most common cause of candidiasis which is an opportunistic infection, in many centers in the world and in our country. Candida parapsilosis sensu stricto, Candida orthopsilosis and Candida metapsilosis within this species complex are indistinguishable from each other phenotypically and various molecular methods are needed for their identification. In this study, we aimed to investigate the antifungal susceptibility of C. parapsilosis species complex isolated from blood cultures in our laboratory and to identify them at species level.

Method: A total of 118 blood isolates from the stock culture of Uludağ University Faculty of Medicine Department of Microbiology were used. The in vitro sensitivity of the isolates to fluconazole, voriconazole, itraconazole, posaconazole, amphotericin B and anidulafungin was determined according to the CLSI-M27 document. The species in the C. parapsilosis species complex were determined by the investigation of the gene region encoding the secondary alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme (SADH) using “polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism” (PCR-RFLP) method.

Results: In this study, fluconazole resistance was found to be 26.3% in the 118 C. parapsilosis species complex isolated from blood cultures, and the resistance to amphotericin B and anidulafungin was almost none. There were no C. orthopsilosis and C. metapsilosis species among these strains.

Conclusion: In this study, it was shown that high fluconazole resistance in C. parapsilosis species complex in our center was not associated with different species in the complex. It is concluded that additional studies should be done to search for clonal relationship between strains and genetic basis of resistance.