In vitro antifungal activity of itraconazole, a new triazole antifungal agent, against clinical isolates from patients with dermatomycoses]

In vitro antifungal activities of itraconazole (ITZ), a triazole antifungal agent, against clinical isolates obtained from patients with superficial and subcutaneous mycoses were examined using the agar dilution method on casitone agar. The clinical isolates tested were 7 species and 263 isolates including Trichophyton mentagrophytes (104 isolates), Trichophyton rubrum (103 isolates), Microsporum canis (3 isolates), Epidermophyton floccosum (2 isolates), Candida albicans (32 isolates), Malassezia furfur (7 isolates) and Sporothrix schenckii (12 isolates). The results are summarized as follows: 1. MIC values of ITZ for the isolates of dermatophytes and M. furfur distributed in a range of less than 0.0012-5 micrograms/ml indicating that ITZ had greater in vitro activities. These in vitro activities of ITZ were greater than those of clotrimazole or bifonazole. 2. C. albicans isolates were divided into 2 groups in terms of ITZ-susceptibilities, a high susceptibility group and low-susceptibility group with MIC values of 0.02-0.08 micrograms/ml and greater than 10 micrograms/ml, respectively. 3. The in vitro activities of ITZ against S. schenckii isolates with a geometric mean MIC of 0.119 micrograms/ml were greater than those of ketoconazole, miconazole or amphotericin B used as reference drugs.