[Clinical and epidemiological changes of candidemia among adult patients from 2000 to 2013]

Invasive Candida spp. infections have been described more frequently.

To characterize the epidemiological data of candidemia in recent years.

A retrospective study of adult patients in a University Hospital in Santiago, Chile, with 1 or more documented episodes of candidemia, from January 2000 to December 2013.

One hundred and twenty episodes of candidemia were identified in 120 patients, annual incidence of 0.4 cases per 1000 discharges, 53.3% were male patients, 58.3% > 60 years, 77,5% had at least one co-morbidity. Candida albicans was the species most frequently identified 55%, followed by C. glabrata 18.3%, C. tropicalis 11.7% and C. parapsilosis 9.2%. Comparing 2000-2006 vs 2007-2013, increased the frequency of C. parapsilosis among non-albicans and echinocandins prescription. Patients with C. albicans showed higher APACHE-II, more requirement for invasive mechanical ventilation, greater association with CVC, and shorter incubation time compared with non-albicans species. The 30-day mortality was 31.7%.

During this 14-years period we observed that C. albicans was the predominant specie and more recently a change among C. non-albicans increasing C. parapsilosis and decreasing C. glabrata 30-days and attributable mortality decreased together with more echinocandins prescription.