Morphotypes of Candida albicans and their associations with underlying diseases and source of samples

The morphotyping method was applied to differentiate a series of 276 Candida albicans strains recovered from hospitalized patients, by using a three-digit code based on the characteristics of the fringe outgrowth. By this scheme 32 different morphotypes were identified. An 86% reproducibility was achieved. The aim of this study was to investigate whether significant correlations exist between the morphotypes and: i) some underlying diseases of the patients, ii) the anatomical sources of the samples. The most striking associations were observed between fringeless strains and non-neoplastic diseases of the respiratory tract, and again between continuous filamentous fringe with parallel outgrowth and AIDS. With a significantly high frequency, samples from the genitourinary tract had a very coarse fringe texture.