PERFORMANCE OF CONVENTIONAL AND AUTOMATED METHODS (MALDI-TOF MS AND VITEK-2) IN YEAST IDENTIFICATION

Abstract

Introduction: Candida and Cryptococcus are frequent etiological agents of systemic fungal infections, and accurate species identification is fundamental for diagnosis and appropriate antifungal therapy. Conventional mycological methods, based on manual biochemical and morphological tests, can have prolonged response times, which has driven the adoption of automated techniques, such as VITEK® 2 Compact and MALDI-TOF MS, that allow for rapid and reliable identification, optimizing clinical management. Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of automated methodologies, MALDI-TOF and VITEK-2, and biochemical tests in the fungal identification of yeasts. Methodology: A quantitative cross-sectional analytical study, with data from January 2023 to January 2024, evaluated the agreement between automated methodologies and conventional manual biochemical tests in samples positive for yeast growth, using Microsoft Office Excel 2013®. Results: Two genera and 11 species were isolated, totaling 126 yeasts identified by the three methodologies. Of these, 63 belonged to the genus Candida and 63 to the genus Cryptococcus. All samples were identified to the genus level, and 89.68% were identified to the species level using manual techniques. Using the VITEK® 2 system, 96.82% of the samples were identified to the genus level and 88.88% to the species level. MALDI-TOF MS, in turn, showed superior performance, with 100% identification at the species level. Conclusion: Conventional biochemical techniques and VITEK-2 have significant limitations in identifying the fungi in question, unlike MALDI-TOF MS, which showed better performance.