What is it about?
The most commonly used antifungal agents can be divided into three broad categories, including triazoles, echinocandins and polyenes. Antifungal resistance is on the increase, posing a growing threat to the stewardship of immunocompromised patients with fungal infections. The paucity of currently available antifungals leads to the rapid emergence of drug resistance and thus aggravates the refractoriness of invasive fungal infections. Therefore, deep exploration into mechanisms of drug resistance and search for new antifungal targets are required.
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Why is it important?
This article highlights the therapeutic strategies targeting heat shock protein90, calcineurin, trehalose biosynthesis and sphingolipids biosynthesis, in an attempt to provide clinical evidence for overcoming drug resistance and to form the rationale for combination therapy of conventional antifungals and agents with novel mechanisms of action.
Perspectives
Therapeutic drug monitoring and careful surveillance should be well conducted to determine drug exposure including dose, concentrations, formulations and routes of administration, with the intention of optimizing treatment response and minimizing side-effects.Appropriate drug stewardship and patient management are also crucial in preventing drug resistance.
Yanhua Zheng
Department of Hematology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: An insight into new strategies to combat antifungal drug resistance, Drug Design Development and Therapy, November 2018, Dove Medical Press,
DOI: 10.2147/dddt.s185833.
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