The Effect of Cumulative Length of Hospital Stay on the Antifungal Resistance of Candida Strains Isolated from Critically Ill Surgical Patients

Fluconazole is the first line of therapy for the management of candidiasis. However, fluconazole-resistant strains pose an emerging challenge in everyday clinical practice. In this study, we sought to determine whether cumulative length of hospital stay (CLOS) is a predictive factor for the acquisition of non-susceptible Candida strains to fluconazole. Thirty-three critically ill emergency surgery patients with 56 Candida isolates were enrolled in this prospective study. We divided our isolates according to their minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) to fluconazole using 8 mcg/ml as a cutoff. We then compared the two groups with respect to basic demographics, antifungal agents prescribed, number of wide-spectrum antibiotics, duration of central venous catheter placement, elapsed time to positive culture, duration of prior hospital stay, and length of hospital stay. Non-susceptible fluconazole samples belonged to patients with a significantly longer prior hospital stay and a longer CLOS (P = 0.02 and 0.01, respectively). The difference between the 2 groups regarding non-albicans strains was statistically significant (P