Antifungal Agents

D: Diflucan
L: Lamisil

Antifungal Agents

In the last decades, there was noticed a a significant increase in fungal diseases. It is caused by many factors, particularly by use of different antibiotics, immunosuppressants, and other drugs.

The growth of fungal diseases (both light and severe visceral mycoses associated with HIV infection and oncohematological illnesses), the evolution of bacterial resistance to existing drugs, the identification of fungi species previously considered non-pathogenic (currently there are about 400 species of fungi considered as potential agents of mycoses) have caused the increased demand in new effective antifungal drugs.

Antifungal agents (antifungals) are considered drugs that have fungicidal or fungistatic effect and are applied to prevent and treat fungal infections. For the treatment of fungal diseases, a number of drugs different in origin (natural or synthetic), spectrum and mechanism of action, antifungal effect (fungicidal or fungistatic), type of infection treated (local or systemic), method of administration (orally, parenterally, topically) is used.

Antifungal drugs can be divided into the following groups:

drugs used for treatment of diseases caused by pathogenic fungi:
- for systemic or severe mycoses
  - antimycotics (amphotericin)
  - imidasole derivatives (cetoconazole)
  - triazole derivatives (Diflucane)
- for dermatomycosis
  - antimycotics (griseofulvin)
  - N-methylnaphthalene derivatives (Lamisil)
  - nitrophenol derivatives
  - iodine agents
drugs used for treatment of diseases caused by opportunistic pathogens:
- antibiotics (nystatin)
- imidasole derivatives (clotrimazole)
- bis-quaternary ammonium salts.

Drug selection in the treatment of fungal infections depends on the type of infectious agent and its sensitivity to the drug, on the drug's toxicity and pharmacokinetics, clinical condition of the patient, etc.

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