Nosocomial infections are a major health problem, whose risk factors include prolonged hospitalization, invasive procedures and broad-spectrum antimicrobial treatments. Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans are commonly isolated microorganisms from the respiratory tract of seriously ill patients. It has been shown that these pathogens may have an interaction of great significance where the morphological characteristics and virulence of each organism is significantly expanding mutually modulate risk and severity of urinary and respiratory infections, causing high morbidity and mortality. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the clinical and microbiological characteristics that result from the presence of both P. aeruginosa and C. albicans in critically ill patients in hospitals in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia). In all cases, initial bacterial process (in this case caused by P. aeruginosa) was treated according to antimicrobial susceptibility and found to decrease the bacterial agent, led to the growth of C. albicans and the development of a new infection that worsened the clinical condition of these patients. Joint infections P. aeruginosa and C. albicans should always be suspected in a hospitalized patient, especially in intensive care units where they use the tubes, catheters and other invasive study materials, as these organisms are opportunistic in nature and clearly can worsen the prognosis and lead to complications in patients who have been hospitalized for various causes or diseases of low complexity, a longer hospital stay and increasing costs.
keywords:
Hospital Infections, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans, random amplified polymorphic DNA technique, disk diffusion antimicrobial tests.
