Abstract

IN VITRO ANTIFUNGAL SUSCEPTIBILITY OF TRICHOPHYTON SPECIES AGAINST ITRACONAZOLE, KETACONAZOLE AND TERBINAFINE.

*Arun B, Remya V S, N.Premkumar and Philip George Theckel

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study was to evaluate the antifungal susceptibility of Trichophytonrubrum(n-75), Trichophytonmentagrophyte(n-50)and Trichophytontonsurans(n-25) against three antifungal drugs namely Itraconazole, Ketaconazole and Terbinafine. METHOD: Antifungal susceptibility was evaluated by CLSI M38 (A) method with minor modifications. RESULT: All tested organisms produced detectable growth after 7 days of incubation at room temperature. Buffered RPMI1640 medium yielded adequate growth of dermatophyte. When all the strains were considered together, the geometric means of the MICs of terbinafine was lowest, which is 0.025 forT.rubrum, 0.03 for T.mentagrophyteand0.012 for T.tonsurans. The comparison of the in vitro susceptibilities of all three tested antifungal agents revealed that they were highly effective, but terbinafine was the most effective. Ketoconazole showed highest MIC values to the tested isolates. Mean difference in susceptibility of each antibiotic to different species was significant at the 0.05 level (P>0.05). Conclusion: Drugresistance could possibly be due to the absence of a proper Antifungal bio gram. While it may seem that fungal infections are generallybenign, a continued lack of adherence to protocols of antifungal susceptibility testing will eventually lead to a situation akin to that observed in the emergence of multi-resistant organisms. If clinical resistance to antifungals is suspected, in vitro antifungal susceptibility testing is to be utilized for better antibiotic choice in contrast to a blind misuse of antifungals.

Keywords: Dermatophytes, Antifungal susceptibility testing, Trichophyton.