Restriction fragment analysis of a Candida tropicalis outbreak of sternal wound infections

An apparent single-source outbreak of Candida tropicalis sternal wound infections in eight patients was investigated by utilizing DNA restriction fragment analysis (RFA) with HindIII and BstNI. All eight outbreak isolates appeared to be identical and were easily differentiated from control isolates by DNA RFA. Compared with an arbitrarily selected reference outbreak isolate, greater than or equal to 95% of the bands in the restriction digests identified by a computerized image analysis system from each of the outbreak isolates were identical versus 13 to 53% of the bands in any of the nine control isolates. Outbreak strains were significantly more likely to match the reference outbreak isolate than were controls (P less than 0.0001). The RFA was greatly facilitated by the use of computerized image analysis and confirmed the epidemiologic link between a scrub nurse and the infected patients.