Experimental Studies on Candidasis

I. Influence of Antibiotics on Candida Infection in Mice

Abstract

The wide-spread use of chemotherapy in recent years has brought on the other side cross infection, especially due to Candidae. There exist still controvertial opinions on the mechanism of the infection. The influence ot antibiotics on Candida infection was experimentally examined by the author in order to elucidate the problems concerning the development of infection. Candida albicans was inoculated in varying quantities and together with antibiotics into the peritoneal cavity of young mice. The lifetime and mortality rate of the animals were recorded, and the condition in which they died was also described. The heart blood and the peritoneal fluid were cultured for the demonstration of the inoculated Candida strain. The animals were given 5mg of one of Aureomycin, Terramycin, Chloromycetin and Streptomycin or 1, 000 units of penicillin. The results were as follows:
1.Antibiotics invariably aggravated Candida infection in mice with an increase of mortality rate and the reduction in time up to the death.
2.Tetracyclines, such as Aureomycin and Teramycin, exerted the most remarkable aggravation effect and were followed by penicillin, Chloromycetin, Streptomycin in order of effect. Except for Streptomycin, all the other antibiotics employed caused the death of the animals, even when they were given an otherwise sublethal dosis of Candida.
3.Candida was demonstrated in the heart blood and peritoneal fluid in a high rate.
4.The mice belonging to the antibiotic group ssuccumbed sometimes in a very shoft time, as in 4-10 hours after the inoculation, and their heart blood gave a positive Candida culture. This indicates, that the reinforcement of Candida infection by antibiotics can not entirely be attributed to across infection caused by antibiotics.