Zeitschrift für klinische und experimentelle Pathologie

Abstrakt

Epidemiology of Candidaemia: A Prospective Comparison between Invasive Candidiasis in Italy and All Over the World.

Maria Teresa Mascellino and Alessandra Oliva

Candida is an important cause of bloodstream infections (BSI), causing significant mortality and morbidity in health care settings [1]. Invasive candidiasis (IC) is a serious disease in hospitalized critically ill and immune-compromised patients [2]. The advances of the supportive therapies, of the complexity of surgical procedures, of the number of elderly people in our society and of the changes in patient demographic characteristics have progressively expanded the population at high risk for fungal diseases. Consequently, the prevalence of Candida infection has increased leading to a higher frequency of invasive candidiasis and candidaemia [3,4]. Bloodstream infections sustained by Candida species are a major cause of morbidity, hospital length of stay, cost of care and mortality in hospitalized patients, the latter ranking 20-30% of all nosocomial BSIs [5,6] or even more [7].