[Use of antifungal combination therapy]

The growing use of antifungal agents in patients with febrile neutropenia points at combination therapy as a strategy to face the increasing incidence of fungal infections in this population. Likewise, the low efficacy of single-drug therapies calls for research on this approach. Combination therapies should focus on extending their activity to a wider range of microorganisms, considering the mechanisms of action of major known antifungal agents, and also on enhancing the individual effect of each drug alone. In vitro and in vivo findings suggest that combination therapy may be better than single-drug therapy with amphotericin B for the treatment of emergent pathogens in immunosuppressed patients. In order to implement combination treatments, knowledge of the sensitivity profile of most prevalent species is required.