• Lucia Garcia San Miguel, Javier Cobo, Enrique Otheo, Aurora Sánchez-Sousa, Victor Abraira, and Santiago Moreno.
• Infectious Diseases Department, Ramón y Cajal Hospital, Madrid, Spain. lgarcias.hrc@salud.madrid.org
• Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2005 Jun 1; 26 (6): 548-52.

ObjectiveTo analyze the secular trends of candidemia in a large tertiary-care hospital to determine the overall incidence, as well as the incidence by ward and by species, and to detect the occurrence of outbreaks.DesignRetrospective descriptive analysis. Secular trends were calculated using the Mantel-Haenszel test.SettingA large tertiary-care referral center in Spain with a pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) to which more than 500 children with congenital cardiac disease are admitted annually.PatientsAll patients with candidemia occurring from 1988 to 2000 were included. Cases were identified from laboratory records of blood cultures.ResultsThere were 331 episodes of candidemia. The overall incidence of nosocomial candidemia was 0.6 episode per 1,000 admissions and remained stable throughout the study period (P = .925). The species most frequently isolated was Candida albicans, but the incidence of C. parapsilosis candidemia increased (P = .035). In the pediatric ICU, the incidence of C. parapsilosis was 5.6 episodes per 1,000 admissions and it was the predominant species. Outbreaks occurred occasionally in the pediatric ICU, suggesting nosocomial transmission.ConclusionsDuring this 13-year period, the incidence of candidemia remained stable in this hospital, but C. parapsilosis increased in frequency. Occasional outbreaks of candidemia suggested nosocomial transmission of Candida species.

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