COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF NEWER TOPICAL ANTIFUNGAL AGENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF SUPERFICIAL FUNGAL INFECTIONS (TINEA OR DERMATOPHYTIC)

Abstract

Within the past few years, new extended - spectrum triazoles and allylamines have been introduced into market. Few of them include Luliconazole, Sertaconazo le and Amorolfine. It is a multicentric, randomized, open - label, comparative study to evaluate the efficacy of newer antifungal drugs. A total 150 patients needed to be enrolled in the study based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. All the patients a re aged between 18 to 80 years. Patients above the age of 18 with clinical evidence of cutaneous mycoses (commonest pres entation - tinea corporis) were treated with newer antifungals like Luliconazole, Sertaconazo le, Amorolfine and eber conazole and Terbin afine and a potassium hydroxide (KOH) preparation of scrapings from a selected lesion was examined microscopically and clinically evaluated. The symptoms and signs of erythema, scaling and pruritus were scored on a scale of 1 (nil) to 3 (severe). Patients were eligible for the study if they had a combined score of at least 5. S ertaconazole showed higher efficacy with 93.3% (p<0.05) and also found to produce least percentage of adverse events with 6.6% compared to other antifungals . Sertaconazole proved to be highly efficient compared to other newer antifungals in terms of efficacy and safety.