Onychomycosis and its Chemotherapy.

Onychomycosis (fungal nail infections) is very common worldwide but is fortunately not often lethal. Several powerful drugs have been introduced into clinical practice in recent years, but these infections remain difficult to cure primarily due to the difficulty of penetration of drug to the site of the infection in therapeutic concentrations. The nature of the disease, the causative fungi, and the characteristics of the drugs employed to treat this condition are discussed in this review.

Recent progress in the chemotherapy of human fungal diseases. Emphasis on 1,3-ß-glucan synthase and chitin synthase inhibitors.

Systemic fungal infections of humans and economically important animals are increasingly common throughout the world. These infections are severe and often hard to treat with existing safe, oral medications. Thus there has been increasing research on alternatives resulting in study of natural and synthetic inhibitors of 1,3-ß-Glucan synthase (GS) and chitin synthase (CS)-enzymes important in the biosynthesis of fungal cell walls that are not utilized in human biochemistry. Some such agents have recently been introduced into parenteral clinical use. There is hope that safe agents of this type with oral activity may yet emerge. This active area of research and its historic context with alternative agents is reviewed herein.