Antifungal Treatments

Question 1

Why will there always be a need for antifungals?

Answer 1

fungal infection is particularly common in immunocomprimised people and so there will always be a demand for antifungals

Question 2

which fungal medicines cannot be bought over the counter?

Answer 2

medicines for systemic fungal infections

Question 3

what does MLC and MIC stand for?

Answer 3

Minimal lethal concentration and Minimal inhibitory concentration

Question 4

what are two types of antifungals that you can get?

Answer 4

fungistatic antifungals which slow the growth of the fungus but do not kill it and fungicidal antifungals which kill the fungus

Question 5

what is a biofilm?

Answer 5

this is a microbial community attached to a surface such as things like medical devices

Question 6

why are biofilms bad?

Answer 6

they help the fungus to be resistant to the immune system and to the application of antifungals

Question 7

what is the basic process of production of antifungals?

Answer 7

first you do tests of the antifungal invitro to see if it has any effect on fungal cells, then you test the antifungal in animal models this is to see how this is metabolised in the body of the animal and to test for any toxicity. Then the drug would be approved for human trials where you would then test for dose concentrations and again examine the effectiveness of the antifungal

Question 8

what are the different ways that you can administer fungal drugs?

Answer 8

you can topically apply the medicine, you can administer this intravenously, there may also be intramuscular injections, the use of liposomes to get the fungus across the cell membrane.

Question 9

what needs to be a key feature of antifungals? what is the main issue with this?

Answer 9

they need to be selectively toxic to the fungus and not to the host. this is difficult because fungi are are Eukaryotic cells which means they share a lot of similar cellular features with us like out basic metabolic pathways

Question 10

what kind of things do you need to know about the antifungal?

Answer 10

you need to know things like the volume of distribution of the antifungal

Question 11

what is the point in a liposome?

Answer 11

stopping an anti-fungal being broken down before it reaches it’s site of action.

Question 12

what are some of the main differences between human cells and fungal cells?

Answer 12

we dont have ergosterol in our cell membranes
we dont have a chitin cell wall
we dont have long chains of glucans in our cell wall