CANDIDA SAKE - A RELEVANT SPECIES IN THE CONTEXT OF HIV-ASSOCIATED OROPHARYNGEAL CANDIDOSIS

Candida sake is routinely identified in the oral cavity of patients in fected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) using the commercia l identification system ATE 32 C. To establish the prevalence of C. sa ke and to evaluate this designation repeatedly found using the ATE 32 C system, 94 HIV-infected patients were investigated for the presence of oral candidosis based on clinical and microbiological grounds. A to tal of 186 Candida isolates from 62 patients were obtained. Using the assimilation assay, C. sake was suspected in 49 isolates, but only sev en strains were positively identified according to ATE 32 C. With resp ect to antifungal susceptibility and clinical parameters the 49 strain s did not differ markedly from the other strains. Only antifungal susc eptibility to amphotericin B, ketoconazole, and flucytosine was increa sed in C. sake strains when the positively and equivocally identified strains by ATE 32 C were taken together. In addition, amplifying genom ic DNA with primers T3B and AP3, C. sake could not be identified in fo ur strains and in one strain, respectively. Therefore biochemical iden tification of C. sake seems to be misleading and clinical relevance ma y be lacking.