ABSTRACT
There has been an abrupt increase in opportunistic fungal infections during the past two decades (Sahiner et al. 2011; Khan and Ahmad 2012; Suzuki et al. 2014). Moreover, the incidences of these infections are predominantly likely to cause infection in the urinary tract. The urinary tract consists of the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra. Urinary tract infection (UTI) is caused by various pathogenic organisms for example bacteria, yeast, fungi and parasites (Sobel and Vasquez 1999; de Marie 2000; Chen et al. 2002; Ghotaslou et al. 2010; Behzadi et al. 2010; Al-Mathkurthy and Abdul-Gaffar 2011). These infections are mainly caused by impairments in host defense mechanisms as a consequence of viral infections, especially the human immunodefi ciency virus, hematological disorders such as different types of leukemia, organ transplants, and more intensive and aggressive medical practices. Many clinical procedures and
1 Department of Biotechnology, S.G.B. Amravati University, Amravati – 444 602, Maharashtra, India. 2 Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. * Corresponding author: mkrai123@rediffmail.com
treatments, such as surgery, the use of catheters, injections, radiation, chemotherapy, antibiotics and steroids, are risk factors for fungal infections (Soll 2000; Kojic and Darouiche 2004; Tiwari et al. 2009; Behiryet al. 2010; Fisher 2011; Sobel et al. 2011; Buonsenso and Cataladi 2012; Suzuki et al. 2014). There are specifi c terminologies that confi ne the urinary tract infection to the major structural segment involved such as urethritis (urethral infection), cystitis (bladder infection), ureter infection and pyelonephritis (kidney infection). The various risk factors associated with the urinary tract infections have been given in Table 1. However, infections in urinary tract are common with the enormous preponderance of Candida species as compared to the other medically important fungi such as Aspergillus and Cryptococcus species causing common clinical syndromes of urethritis, cystitis, and pyelonephritis.
