[Clinical efficacy of flucytosine on urinary candidiasis]

An antifungal agent (Flucytosine) was used to treat urinary candidiasis in 9 patients who had an indwelling catheter and developed fungal colony counts greater than 10(4). Among 9 patients with catheter drainage, urologic underlying diseases were benign prostatic hyperplasia in 7 and a neurogenic bladder in one patient all of whom had accompanied diabetes mellitus. Only one patient was supravesically diverted from the upper urinary tract through an indwelling catheter of bilateral ureterocutaneostomy after the removal of a tumorous bladder. All patients had previously received antimicrobials. Isolated strains of Candida were Candida albicans in 6, Candida tropicalis in 2, and Candida parapsilosis in one patient. Out of 9 patients having received daily administration of 1,500 mg Flucytosine for 2 weeks, 7 patients subsequently had no yield of fungal colony after the treatment. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of this agent was determined at the range of 0.1 to 0.2 microgram/ml in 5 patients with C. albicans and 0.2 microgram/ml in both patients with C. tropicalis. Otherwise, a high MIC of over 100 micrograms/ml indicating resistance to this agent was observed in only 2 patients with C. albicans and C. parapsilosis. Three of the 7 patients had recurrent urinary Candida infection even 2 weeks after the discontinuation of this antifungal therapy despite rapid and excellent eradication of urinary candidiasis. From these results, Flucytosine may be one of the most promising antifungal agent with a low MIC in the treatment of compromised urinary Candida infection and should be occasionally supplemented with a topical instillation of amphotericin B without any serious complication in the prevention of recurrence.