EVALUACIÓN DE LA CONFIABILIDAD DE LA METODOLOGÍA MANUAL FRENTE A LA METODOLOGÍA AUTOMATIZADA EN LA IDENTIFICACIÓN DE CÁNDIDA ALBICANS

Abstract

Candida albicans is the main species related to most superficial and deep infections caused by yeasts, therefore it is necessary to have tests that are fast and accurate for timely microbiological identification through the reliability of both manual methodologies and automated methodologies such as the VITEK system and thus establish which is the best option to use in the laboratory, THE objective was to evaluate the reliability of manual methodology versus automated methodology in the identification of Candida albicans. The methodology used was a cross-sectional observational analytical study, with a quantitative approach since data collection was used based on numerical measurement and statistical analysis, it is non-experimental, according to the chronology the research is prospective, the inclusion and exclusion criteria were analyzed. The results were as follows: from 100 microbiological samples of fungi where 82% (n=82) corresponds to isolates of the albicans species, 18% corresponds to other species, which are: tropicalis (n=10), glabrata (n=5) and parapsilosis (n=3), was isolated in 82 samples of the microorganism to be identified of which it is observed that 73. 17% were isolated from vaginal secretion samples, 10.98% from skin secretions, 8.54% from seminal secretions, and 3.66% from oral and intestinal secretions. Of the total of 82 positive samples for Candida albicans, the conventional method (CHROMagar) and the automated method (VITEK) gave 70 correct identifications of the yeast and one incorrect identification of the yeast. On the other hand, CHROMagar identified 3 positive results that VITEK did not and VITEK identified 8 positive results that CHROMagar failed, the Kappa statistic (κ),. κ =0.093 indicates that there is a slight concordance between the CHROMagar and VITEK methods. The results indicate that there is no statistically significant agreement between the CHROMagar and VITEK methods for identifying Candida albicans. The odds ratios suggest some level of association, based on the Kappa statistic, an acceptable to moderate agreement between the two methods is proposed..