الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Biofilms represent the most prevalent form of microbial growth in nature. It represents a significant problem in many fields including industry and agriculture and of particular importance in medicine. The fully developed fungal biofilms are made up of a mixture of host cells, yeast, pseudohyphae and hyphae, and the extracellular matrix. Development occurs in three phases over a period of 24–48 h. It should be noted that environmental and clinical biofilms are rarely, if ever, monomicrobial. Almost all fungi can form biofilm but filamentation seems to play a critical role in the development of the spatially organized architecture. Biofilms are organized cellular communities under the control of several genes and signaling molecules rather than random accumulation of cells. Antimicrobial resistance is the most clinically relevant biofilm-specific property; that may explain the persistence of many infections in the face of appropriate antimicrobial therapy It is hoped that a unified method will emerge to be able to compare results obtained. Various model systems have been used. It has been estimated that 65% of all human microbial infections involve biofilm, which also constitutes the majority of hospital-acquired infections. Many of biofilm related infections are implant-related although it can also be detected in non device- related chronic infections. Biofilm may chronically survive in an indwelling medical device at a low metabolic rate without apparent signs of disease and when these microorganisms are released in planktonic fashion from the biofilm they cause symptoms. Antimicrobials or the defense mechanisms of the body can kill these planktonic forms. However, those organisms in the biofilm are protected. Thus prevention or elimination of these biofilms from devices would be of significant benefit in management of patient health. Future studies are needed to clarify the exact mechanism of resistance of fungal biofilm to different antimicrobials and host defenses and to put guidelines for the prevention and eradication of biofilm infection instead of device removal.