Antifungal creams are medications that are prescribed to treat fungal skin infections such as athlete’s foot, ringworm, and jock itch. A report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has claimed that antifungal creams and combinations of antifungal treatments with corticosteroids might be contributing to the spread of severe skin, scalp, and nail fungal infections.
Last year, dermatologists detected a highly contagious drug-resistant fungal skin infection that doesn’t respond to the existing few fungal treatments and reportedly it is the first known case in the United States.
According to a report by Science Alert, these drug-resistant fungal infections have spread to other parts of the world. A CDC team led by epidemiologist Kaitlin Benedict analysed the antifungal prescriptions in the United States.
Overuse of anti-fungal medicines can lead to resistance similar to antibiotic resistance.
“The large volume of topical antifungal prescriptions in the context of emerging resistance highlights the need to better understand current prescribing practices and to encourage judicious prescribing by clinicians and improve patient education about recommended use,” the team writes in their paper.
The team examined roughly 1 million health professionals who wrote prescriptions for nearly 49 million people covered under Medicare, the US government’s national health insurance program, in 2021.
According to the researchers, around 6.5 million topical antifungal prescriptions were filled that year in the US, at a total cost of US$231 million.
“The actual volume of topical antifungal use among the study population is likely considerably higher than that identified in this study because most topical antifungals can be purchased over the counter without a prescription,” the researchers note.
It is noteworthy that most antifungal prescriptions in 2021 were written by primary care physicians (40 percent) followed by nurse practitioners, dermatologists, and podiatrists.
The researchers found that the large number of clotrimazole-betamethasone prescriptions, accounted for 15 percent of all topical antifungals prescribed. Reportedly, this combination treatment is thought to be a potential driver of emerging drug-resistant tinea, also known as dermatophytosis.
“To help control the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistant superficial fungal infections and help promote the appropriateness of topical antifungal prescribing, health care providers could use diagnostic testing whenever possible to confirm suspected superficial fungal infections,” the researchers conclude.
The findings of the research were published in US CDC’s journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report recently.
