Risk factors for and clinical implications of mixed Candida/bacterial bloodstream infections

Mixed Candida/bacterial bloodstream infections (BSIs) have been reported to occur in more than 23% of all episodes of candidaemia. However, the clinical implications of mixed Candida/bacterial BSIs are not well known. We performed a retrospective case-control study of all consecutive patients with candidaemia over a 5-year period to determine the risk factors for and clinical outcomes of mixed Candida/bacterial BSIs (cases) compared with monomicrobial candidaemia (controls). Thirty-seven (29%) out of 126 patients with candidaemia met the criteria for cases. Coagulase-negative staphylococci were the predominant bacteria (23%) in cases. In multivariate analysis, duration of previous hospital stay ≥7 weeks (odds ratio (OR), 2.86; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.09–7.53), prior antibiotic therapy ≥7 days (OR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.14–0.82) and septic shock at the time of candidaemia (OR, 2.60; 95% CI, 1.14–5.93) were significantly associated with cases. Documented clearance of candidaemia within 3 days after initiation of antifungal therapy was less frequent in cases (63% vs. 84%; p = 0.035). The difference in the rate of treatment failure at 2 weeks was not significant between cases (68%) and controls (62%; p = 0.55). The crude mortality at 6 weeks and survival through 100 days did not differ between the two patient groups (p = 0.56 and p = 0.80, respectively). Mixed Candida/bacterial BSIs showed a lower clearance rate of candidaemia during the early period of antifungal therapy, although the treatment response and survival rate were similar regardless of concurrent bacteraemia. Further studies on the clinical relevance of species-specific Candida-bacterial interactions are needed.