Evaluation of a new antifungal cream, ciclopirox olamine 1% in the treatment of cutaneous candidosis.

The efficacy and safety of a new antimycotic agent, ciclopirox olamine, were evaluated in two multicenter, randomized, double-blind trials in patients with clinically and mycologically diagnosed cutaneous candidosis. Patients applied the assigned drug twice daily for 28 days. In the first comparison, significantly better clinical and mycological results were obtained in the 74 patients treated with ciclopirox olamine than in the 70 patients treated with the vehicle only. The highly significant differences between treatment groups persisted through the final visit, two weeks posttreatment. In the second study, after one, two, and three weeks of treatment, significantly better clinical responses were seen in the 48 patients treated with ciclopirox olamine than in the 48 treated with clotrimazole. Mycological responses, however, were similar in the two treatment groups over the four-week treatment and two-week posttreatment periods. No side effects were reported in either multicenter study. The results show that ciclopirox olamine is a safe and effective treatment for cutaneous candidosis. Furthermore, ciclopirox olamine has been shown to ameliorate the clinical manifestations of this often inflammatory fungal infection more rapidly than clotrimazole, a widely used imidazole compound.