The Antifungal drug reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Antifungal drug

An antifungal drug is medication used to treat fungal infections such as athlete's foot, ringworm and candidiasis (thrush), as well as serious systemic infections like cryptococcal meningitis.

Unlike bacteria, yeasts and fungi are eukaryotes, as are humans (and all other plants and animals). The basic structure of a fungal cell is nearly identical to a human's. This means finding a target for an antifungal to attack, that does not exist in the infected organism, is more difficult.

List of antifungal drugs

Antifungals work by exploiting differences between mammalian and fungal cells to kill off the fungal organism and without significantly harming the host. There are often side-effects to these drugs.

• Ketoconazole blocks the synthesis of ergosterol in fungal cells. It will also block steroid synthesis in humans.
• Amphotericin B
• Fluconazole
• Terbinafine

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