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

Within the past few years, new extended-spectrum triazoles and allylamines have been introduced into market. Few of them include Luliconazole, Sertaconazole 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 are aged between 18 to 80 years. Patients above the age of 18 with clinical evidence of cutaneous mycoses (commonest presentation- tinea corporis) were treated with newer antifungals like Luliconazole, Sertaconazole, Amorolfine and eberconazole and Terbinafine 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. Sertaconazole 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