Use of chromogenic tube and methyl blue-sabouraud agar for the identification of Candida albicans strains.

This study was performed to investigate the use of chromogenic tube and methyl blue-Sabouraud agar for the presumptive identification of Candida albicans. 124 clinical isolates, including 111 C.albicans and 13 Candida spp strains, which had been identified by morphology on cornmeal tween 80 agar and Vitek automated identification system, were included. Three different identification procedures, a) germ tube test, b) chromogenic tube test by using CHROMagar Candida and c) methyl blue-Sabouraud agar test, were performed to the strains. 88 of 111 (79.3%) C.albicans strains were detected to be positive by germ tube test. 87 (78.4%), 97 (87.4%) and 102 (91.9%) of these isolates were identified as C.albicans by chromogenic tube test after 2, 8 and 24 hours of incubation, respectively. 88 (79.3%), 92 (82.9%) and 88 (79.3%) of the isolates were correctly identified as C.albicans by methyl blue-Sabouraud agar test after 2, 8 and 24 hours of incubation, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity values were found to be 79.3 and 69.2 for the germ tube test. These values ranged between 78.4-91.9% and 69.2-76.9% for chromogenic tube test and 79.3-82.9% and 76.9-84.6% for methyl blue-Sabouraud agar depending on the incubation period. It can be concluded that the use of chromogenic tube and methyl blue-Sabouraud agar are rapid, simple and objective methods for the identification of C.albicans strains.