Refractory oral candidiasis. Report of a case.

A 55-year-old male patient with no significant medical history or systemic physical findings was found, on routine dental examination, to have an oral Candida albicans infection. The condition failed to clear completely after 21 days of nystatin therapy. A 5-day course of clotrimazole was then initiated. Complete clearing of all signs of candida infection occurred in 48 hours, but the infection recurred by the twentieth day of follow-up. A 14-day regimen was then prescribed. Again, the condition cleared in 48 hours, and at the 6-month follow-up all signs of candida involvement, including cultures and smears, remained negative. As no reports of the use of clotrimazole vaginal tablets in oral candidiasis clinically refractory to nystatin therapy were found in the literature of the last 11 years, it was thought that this case was of significant interest.