Introduction: Vulvovaginal candidiasis is a common problem affecting reproductive aged women. Candida Albicans species were the most common pathogen implicated in these cases. But recently there has been reports of Non Albicans Candida species emerging as new pathogens from different parts of the world and they are reported to be less sensitive to the commonly used antifungal drugs. We tried to find out the most prevalent species of Candida among our antenatal population and their drug sensitivity patterns

Objectives of the study: 1) to isolate different candida species in culture from clinically diagnosed case of vulvovaginal candidiasis in reproductive aged women

2) To speciate the isolates using phenotypic characters and anti-fungal susceptibility of the isolates in vitro

Study Design: Cross sectional prospective study

Study Setting: Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Department of Microbiology, Government medical college, Thiruvananthapuram

Study Period: 2017 1st January to 31^st December

Study Population: Antenatal women with clinical diagnosis of vulvo vaginal candidiasis attending the hospital for antenatal and intrapartum care.

Results: vaginal swabs from 400 clinically suspected cases of vulvo vaginal candidiasis were collected and examined in culture for identification of Candida species.70.5% of women belonged to 20-29 age group and 15.8% in 30-39 year age group.65 cultures (16.3%) were positive for candida .Rest of the cultures were negative for  fungal growth. Out of 65 cases 30(46.2%) were Candida ALbicans species.And 35 cases( 53.8%) were Non albicans Candida species.(NAC) Amoung the NAC, Candida tropicalis was the most predominant strain in our study population(24.6%),followed by C. Glabrata(16.9%) and C.Parasilosis (12.3%) as the other isolates. Antifungal susceptibility was tested against 3 major antifungals namely fluconazole, clotrimazole and Amphotericin-B. Studies showed that drug resistance to all the 3 antifungals were present among 10% of Candida Albicans strains only. Among the NAC, all the strains were sensitive to the standard antifungals and drug resistance could not be demonstrated.

Conclusion: Among the antenatal women with vulvovaginal candidiasis, Non albicans Candida was a predominant strain and the strains were sensitiveto standard antifungals used.

Keywords: Vulvovaginal candidiasis, Candida Albicans, Non Albicans candida, Drug sensitivity.

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Dr Preetha.R

Assistant Professor, Dept. of Microbiology, Govt Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram