Antifungal Susceptibility Pattern in Otomycosis among Patients Attending a Tertiary Healthcare Institution in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

Antifungal resistance is one of the factors considered to hamper effective treatment of otomycosis. Consequently, this study was aimed at isolating etiological agent for otomycosis among patients that visited University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital from June 2017 to June 2018 and carry out antifungal susceptibility testing with the isolates. Ear swab from 120 patients and 120 control group was aseptically collected. Nystatin, voriconazole and fluconazole were used for antifungal susceptibility testing by agar diffusion method. Isolation and identification of fungal isolates was by Standard microbiological methods. From our result, fungi were isolated from ear swab of 34 patients and 5 from the control. The isolates and their frequency of occurrence are Candida sp. (61.8%), Aspergillus sp. (23.5%) and Penicillium sp. (8.8%), while Candida albicans was the only isolate seen among the control group. Susceptibility result revealed that Candida sp. and Penicillium sp. as being sensitive to voriconazole. (76.9%) and fluconazole (66.7%) respectively. Findings from this study underscore the importance of antifungal susceptibility testing before treatment of otomycosis in order to achieve high success rate thereby reduce cases of antifungal resistance.