UTI is regularly found in patients with immunosuppressive conditions, long hospitalization, and who have undergone surgical procedures. Alvarez-Lerma from Spain showed that 10% - 15% urinary tract infections in the ICU patients are caused by the
Candida species and 22% of critically ill patients hospitalized for more than seven days in ICUs revealed candiduria (
13). During 1995 - 2001, there was 25,000 cases of candiduria per year in the United States (
14). Diabetes mellitus is a formidable risk factor for the infection, since the mucous membranes in this group are more susceptible to UTI due to immune deficiencies (
15).
Candida colonization was elevated in the present of nitrogenous compounds and acidic pH. In the present study, 44% of patients were diabetic as a major predisposing factor for UTI. The majority of UTI cases are catheter users (
16). In accordance, all patients in the present investigation used urethral catheters. In agreement with our findings,
Candida albicans is the most prevalent
Candida species causing candiduria (
17,
18), however there is a substantial trend to non-
albicans Candida species (
19,
20). A high number of cases of UTI due to the non-
albicans species may be in connection with fluconazole consumption as a first line antifungal therapy because many
Candida species are inherently resistant to flocuazole or susceptible only to high doses of this antifungal drug such as
Candida krusei and
Candida glabrata (
1). The limitation of our study was the lack of determination of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the clinical isolates which is strongly recommended for further studies. Some studies introduce
Cryptococcus neoformans and
Trichosporon asahii as etiologic agents of UTI (
21) but,
Candida was the only fungus isolated from patients enrolled in the present investigation. A recurrent
Candida UTI is a rare clinical manifestation and appears in diabetic patients or anatomical abnormalities of the urinary tract (
22). Diabetes mellitus is a main risk factor for development of candidemia and is reported in nearly one third of all UTI patients (
23). We followed up all patients especially diabetic patients (44%) and fortunately nobody presented systemic candidiasis in the present investigation. Similar to the present study, females usually have a higher chance for candiduria and UTI (
24) in connection with vulvovaginal colonization by
Candida species and their anatomy (
6,
25), however, in many investigations males are the predominant population among UTI patients (
11,
26).
Candida species are isolated from 20-60% of UTI in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) and pediatric intensive care units (PICU) (
27), but in the present study, the frequency of UTI among infants was only 1%. Since older individuals reveal natural modifications of the immune system, so longer hospitalization in intensive care units and use of urinary catheters was seen more commonly in this population (
28,
29). Similar to most surveys in this field (
6,
27), most patients in the present investigation were over 65 years old. The median absolute neutrophil count (ANC) less than 1.5 × 10
9/L is considered as neutropenia (
30,
31). In the present study 11% of patients were neutropenic with the mid age of 65.2 years.