Recent Trends in Antifungal Agents: A Reference to Formulation, Characterization and Applications

Fungi are the heterotrophic eukaryotic organisms which are useful as they causes the biodegradation. There are still some harmful species like yeasts, molds and dermatophytes which cause the infections. As the fungi are eukaryotics, they do not respond to the antibiotic therapy due to the limitations associated with the traditional antibiotic therapies. There are several antifungal agents introduced to treat such infections. These antifungal agents posses severe problems like drug resistance and toxicity due to the higher dose which comprises the need for newer alternatives over conventional dosage forms. Novel drug delivery systems proved to be a better approach to enhance the effectiveness of the antifungals and enhance patient compliance by reducing the adverse effect. This review focused on the general information about fungal infections, types and mechanism of action of antifungal agents and overview of formulation approaches such as vesicular system, colloidal system, nanoparticulate system and in situ gelling which are often studied for antifungal treatments. We concluded that the novel drug delivery systems are the essential techniques for delivering the antifungal agents to their target site with desired concentration. Moreover, the researchers focused on these novel drug deliveries which mainly concentrate on controlling & sustaining the release of antifungal agents.