the phenotypic variation of candida albicans and susceptibility to fluconazole and voriconazole

Candida albicans is the most frequent opportunistic fungal agent in human being. one of its virulence factors is phenotypic switching. in this study, we investigated the susceptibility of different phenotypes of c. albicans, obtained from clinical specimens, to fluconazole (flz) and voriconazole (vrz) with microdilution reference method. in this study, 281 c. albicans of six different phenotypes including 66.19% smooth, 11.38% stipple, 8.89% fuzzy, 6.40% star, 4.27% irregular and 2.84% ring form were collected. among these specimens, 75.80% and 88.61% of the phenotypes were susceptible (s), 13.52% and 5.96% were susceptible, but dose dependent and finally 10.67% and 1.77% were resistant (r) to flz and vrz, respectively. most of (s) samples were smooth form and most (r) forms were stipple. the mean minimum inhibitory concentration of flz was higher than vrz. in general, two antifungal medicines were effective on different phenotypes of c. albicans. samples of (s) group had a significant difference with (r) group (p<0.05). the raising prevalence of candidiasis and more probability of susceptibility pattern in c. albicans phenotypes are the reasons to use the susceptibility tests on the antifungal drugs in clinical laboratory.