Your patient is a woman with a vaginal discharge. You suspect, on clinical grounds, that it may be due to Candida albicans. Which one of the following statements is LEAST accurate or appropriate?

  •  The clinical laboratory can use germ tube formation to identify the isolate as C. albicans.
  •  A Gram stain of the discharge should reveal budding yeasts.
  •  Antibiotics predispose to Candida vaginitis by killing the normal flora lactobacilli that keep the vaginal pH low.
  •  Culture of the discharge on Sabouraud’s agar should produce a white mycelium with aerial conidia.