EXOGENIC REINFECTION - A POSSIBLE CAUSE OF RECURRENT GENITAL CANDIDOSIS IN WOMEN

Recurrent genital candidiasis (RGC), the infection that afflicts an extremely large number of women worldwide, is characterized by at least three vaginal fungal infection episodes per year, even in spite a conducted therapy with antimycotics. The aim of the paper was to determine in which percentage the exogenic re-infection can be a potential cause of RGC. The samples of vaginal swabs of 70 female RGC patients and 70 healthy women of control group were submitted for mycological analysis (direct microscopic examination, culture and antifungal susceptibility test). Mycological analysis also included the samples (swabs of urethra and glans penis) of 140 male partners of the examined women. By CandiFast test, the strains of yeasts of the genus Candida were differentiated and their antifungal susceptibility was examined in vitro. The isolated strains of Candida spp. obtained from the female genital tract material and their partners were compared and labeled as identical in case of the same biochemical activity and sensitivity to antimycotics. Identical resistotypes of Candida albicans were identified in 11 female RGC patients and their partners. Statistically significant difference (p<0.005) was found compared to control group. By using a commercial antimycogram test, a high percentage of strains sensitive to amphotericin B, nystatine, 5-fluorocitozine, ketoconazole was recorded. The exogenic reinfection, as the possible cause of RGC, was found only in 15.7% of women with this chronic infection.