Page 33 - ANTIFUNGAL SUSCEPTIBILITY OF CLINICAL YEAST ISOLATES 2018-2020

Future improvements

The present antifungal susceptibility report is based on data compiled in 2018-

2020. Since this is the first surveillance national report, we encountered some

issues that may need to be addressed.

Following are some points to be considered in order to improve the future

national antifungal susceptibility report :-
i. Since there are 3 major AFST methods used by the hospitals to conduct the

routine antifungal susceptibility tests, future reports may need to be

stratified accordingly. The E-test has been found to have low agreement
with the CLSI method in our preliminary study. Therefore, it is

recommended that laboratories that are currently using this method to

change to other suitable method soonest possible.

ii. All isolates have to be identified correctly, for difficult organisms,
preferably using either molecular method or MALDI-TOF MS.

iii. Candida parapsilosis complex should be identified to the subspecies level in

order to see the susceptibility pattern of each subspecies. The same goes for

Candida haemulonii complex.
iv. This antifungal susceptibility report can be further improved by adding

certain clinical information such as underlying diseases, risk factors and

clinical outcome of infections.

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