Strategies of Drug Delivery for Deep Fungal Infection: A Review

The deep fungal infection poses serious threats to human health, mainly due to the increase in the number of immunocompromised individuals. Current first-line antifungal agents such as Amphotericin B, Fluconazole and Itraconazole, may decrease the severity of fungal infection to some extent, but the poor drug bioavailability, drug toxicity and poor water solubility seriously restrict their clinical utility. This review focuses on the study of drug delivery strategies for the treatment of deep fungal infections. We summarize the drug delivery strategies recently reported for the treatment of deep fungal infection, and explain each part with research examples. We discuss the use of pharmaceutical approaches to improve the physicochemical properties of the antifungal drugs to provide a basis for the clinical application of antifungal drugs. We then highlight the strategies for targeting drug delivery to the infection sites of fungi and fungal surface moieties, which have the potential to get developed as clinically relevant targeted therapies against deep fungal infections. It is worth noting that the current research on fungal infections still lags behind the research on other pathogens, and the drug delivery strategy for the treatment of deep fungal infections is far from meeting the treatment needs. Therefore, we envision the potential strategies inspired by the treatment of diseases with referential pathology or pathophysiology, further enriching the delivery of antifungal agents, providing references for basic research of fungal infections. Lay Summary: The deep fungal infections pose serious threats to the health of immunodeficiency patients. It is worth noting that the current research on fungi is still lagging behind that on other pathogens. The drug delivery strategies for the treatment of deep fungal infections are far from meeting the treatment needs. We summarize the recently reported drug delivery strategies for treating deep fungal infection, and envision the potential strategies to further enrich the delivery of antifungal agents.