Assesment of the indoor air fungi in academic staff rooms of Pamukkale University, Faculty of Medicine

Aim: humans constantly are faced with fungal spores in nature. there is a chronic exposure in workplaces as indoor area. allergy and toxicologic symptoms are the main problems owing to the prsence of higher fungal load in respiratory air. atopic individuals are at a greater risk of sensitization by fungi. in this study, indoor air fungal fl ora of pamukkale university medical faculty education personel rooms’ which were localized in three different buildings, have been screened for the presence of allergic and toxicologic fungi. dominant fungal fl ora in indoor air and allergic symptoms were evaluated. materials and methods: indoor air from march to may of 2009, 82 faculty members’ study rooms used by 106 academic staff , have been included in the study. air ideal sampler (bio-merieux, france) was used for indoor air sampling. cultivation and identifi cation have been done by conventional methods. results: totally 15194 fungi belonging to 18 different species have been isolated. cladosporium sp as the most frequent (%38.4) and followed by penicillium sp (%18.1) and aspergillus sp (%9.2) genera have been isolated. no allergic symptoms have been correlated with air fungal load (p>0.05). aspergillus sp. is higher in rooms windows facing the buildings in construction site (p<0.05). no signifi cant difference has been found in terms of rates of total fungi(p>0.05) between the fl oors of each storey in the building which has relatively high humidity and low temperature zygomycetes have been more cultured from indoor air (p<0.05). conclusion: as a result, it is considered that indoor fungi load or species may not be the cause for allergic symptoms in rooms’ staff. similar research should be planned in different climates and in places with different environmental properties.it is also assumedthat internal microbiological control of the indoor air will increase work effi ciency.