Antifungal Treatment

Antifungal treatment

An antifungal treatment is a medical fungicide which is used to treat and prevent mycoses such as athlete's foot, ringworm, candidiasis (thrush), serious systemic infections such as cryptococcal meningitis, and others.

Classes of antifungals

Polyene antifungals

A polyene is related to a molecule which denotes the multiple conjugated double bonds. A polyene antifungal is a macrocyclic polyene with a heavily hydroxylated region on the ring opposite the conjugated system. This makes polyene antifungals amphiphilic.

The polyene antimycotics bind with few sterols in the fungal cell membrane, principally ergosterol. This will change the transition temperature, which is also called as (Tg) of the cell membrane, thereby placing the membrane in a less fluid, more crystalline state.

Imidazole, triazole, and thiazole antifungals

These are antifungal medicines which are used to prevent enzyme lanosterol 14 ?-demethylase; the enzyme necessary to convert lanosterol to ergosterol. Reducing the number of ergosterol in fungal membrane disrupts the structure and also many functions of fungal membrane which is leading to inhibition of the fungal growth.