| Abstract: |
Back ground In the recent years; opportunistic fungal infections are gaining greater importance in human medicine as a result of possibly huge number of immunocompromised patients such as patients with haematologic malignancy. Fungi are ubiquitous in the natural environment, appearing in air, water, surfaces and soil. The exposure to fungal species that contaminate the environment is inevitable hazard for those with impaired host defenses who suffer the most severe forms of fungal infections.Objectives First to identify different types of fungi present both in patients with haematological malignancy with invasive fungal infections, and in the environment surrounding those patients, and second to discuss the impact of environmental fungi on the health of those immunocompromised patients.Materials & methods Samples from air by volumetric air sampler, surfaces by contact slides, and patients (sputum, blood, and endotracheal aspirate) are taken, and fungi isolated from theses samples are identified. All isolated strains of A. fumigatus from both patients, and from environmental samples, were subjected to typing by sequence- specific DNA primer (SSDP) analysis.Results revealed that: in patients’ samples, 67 patients with diagnosed invasive fungal infection were reported. Molds were responsible for (83.6%) and yeasts for (16.4%) of infections. A. fumigatus alone was responsible for 34.32% of all infections, all yeast infection were caused by candida species, the majority of candida infections were caused by non Candida albicans species (54.5%). the mean air fungal load in oncology unit was (37.2cfu/m3), highest colonization percentage of fungi in air was due to dematiaceous fungi (Alternaria, and Cladosporium) (28.1%), In surface samples the mean fungal load was 238.7cfu/m2, the highest colonization percentage was due to C.albicans (44.8%). The highest colonization percentage in nurses’ hand was due to C. albicans (46.67%). Results of typing of A. fumigatus isolates by SSDP revealed that type 14 is the most frequent type found in both environmental and patients’ isolates of A.fumigatus. Strains type 6, 7, and 14 predominate in environmental isolates of A. fumigatus, while strains type 14, 24, and 3 predominate in patients’ isolates of A. fumigatus. After analysis of the results of the typing method by both chi square test X2= 24.4, and FISHER EXACT test= 23.8, it was found that there is significant relation ship between A. fumigatus types isolated from patients and those isolated from environment , as the P value was 0.001. .
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