Claire L. Taschdjian

Advances in the diagnosis of renal candidiasis.

Candiduria may signify benign saprophytic colonization or true infection of the urinary tract. Histological studies of 64 suspect cases of renal candidiasis, 20 of them positive, suggest that a Candida colony count of 10,000 to 15,000 per ml. or more in a catheterized specimen is a useful cut-off point between infection and colonization. One to 3 Candida per high power field in an uncentrifuged urine specimen equated with a colony count of 10,000 to 15,000 Candida per ml. Colony counts were diagnostically invalid in the presence of an indwelling Foley catheter. Other diagnostic aids included positive serum precipitin tests (83%) and positive blood cultures (47%).

Metabolic studies of the tissue phase of Candida albicans induced in vitro.

The tissue morphology of Candida albicans, characterized by ovoid thinwalled blastospores with small vacuoles and by mycelia, was reproduced in vitro on dialysates of sera and plasmas.On these substrates C. albicans utilized all available amino acids as well as glucose without evolution of carbon dioxide and without appreciably changing the pH. Sulfhydryl was not liberated, and Triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) was not reduced by budding or filamentizing spores, or by hyphae. Similar results were obtained when 3% serum albumin was added to the substrate.In whole serum, and in dialysates containing gamma globulin, budding was suppressed and no free amino acids were utilized although all available glucose was consumed.Serum proteins in whole serum and serum albumin and/or gamma globulin added to dialysates were not broken down.TTC was not reduced by the mycelial phase of C. albicans in serum, or in mouse tissue upon inoculation by the airpouch technique.The tissue morphology of C. albicans could not be re...