ORAL CANDIDA COLONIZES THE STOMACH AND GASTROSTOMY FEEDING TUBES

The lumen of gastrostomy tubes is frequently colonized with Candida. T o investigate the source of this contamination, 20 consecutive malnour ished patients undergoing placement of a percutaneous endoscopic gastr ostomy tube and ten ambulatory controls having routine upper endoscopy performed had both their oral cavity and gastric antrum swabbed and c ultured. Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube recipients who after several weeks were still under our care (9 of 20) had the lumen of th eir tubes cultured Fungi were isolated from the stomach in 13 (65%) of 20 patients undergoing percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube place ment but in only 1 of 10 ambulatory patients (p < .01). The species is olated from the oral cavity, the stomach, and later the gastrostomy tu be were identical in most cases. We conclude that gastrostomy tubes ar e probably colonized by oral organisms that have made their way into t he stomach