Efficacy of Chromogenic Candida Agar for isolation and presumptive identification of pathogenic yeast species

Chromogenic Candida Agar is a novel differential culture medium that is claimed to facilitate isolation and identification of Candida albicans, Candida tropicalis and Candida krusei. The performance of this medium was evaluated for presumptive identification of 521 yeast strains, representing 23 different species, for detection of specimens containing yeast mixtures, and for direct isolation of yeast from blood cultures. All yeasts grew well on the medium following a 48-h incubation period at 37 degrees C, and distinctive colonies were produced by C. albicans, C. tropicalis, C. krusei, Candida guilliermondii, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Trichosporon mucoides and Geotrichum capitatum. The sensitivity and specificity of the medium exceeded 99.4% for each of these species. The medium provided some indication of the presence of Candida dubliniensis and Candida pulcherrima, and allowed the identification of polyfungal samples in 89.4% of the yeast mixtures. Finally, direct isolation on the medium from blood cultures that were positive for yeast according to Gram's stain (n = 42) showed that the expected colour and morphology of each species were not altered in the presence of blood.