Critical review on retrospective and prospective changes in antifungal susceptibility testing for dermatophytes

Antifungal susceptibility testing is a progressive field of mycology with respect to dermatophytes as well as non-dermatophytes. Documentation and approval regarding standardisation of in vitro susceptibility testing have been done by different governing bodies such as Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing and British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. The process of standardisation and approval started in 1985 with certain amendments in 2002 and 2004. In case of dermatophytes, antifungal susceptibility testing protocol has been approved recently in 2008; however, the approved standardisation also needs certain amendments/modifications due to the limitations of an existing method. In the present review, we have compiled these standardisation techniques along with the limitations and advantages and the amendments that have been proposed at different time periods by different researchers and regulatory agencies.