Effectiveness and safety of ciclopirox olamine in patients with dermatophytosis: a retrospective cohort analysis

Background: The current scenario of dermatophytosis is alarming, despite the availability of multiple antifungal agents the management of dermatophytosis is still challenging. Hence there is a need for a different antifungal with a novel mechanism of action for the management of dermatophytosis.Methods: It was retrospective cohort study where in record of patients with dermatophytosis who were candidates for topical therapy only were analysed. All the patients were treated with Ciclopirox olamine 1% twice daily for 6 weeks. The efficacy end points were complete cure rate, mycological cure rate and clinical cure rate.Results: 613 patients were included in the final analysis. At the end of study period the complete, mycological and clinical cure rates were 73.89%, 75.37% and 77.65% respectively. Out of 613 patients included 528 patients showed treatment failure to previous topical antifungal agents while 84 patients were treatment naïve. In treatment failure patients the complete, mycological and clinical cure rates were 72.15%, 73.48, and 75.56% respectively. In treatment naïve patients the complete, mycological and clinical cure rates were 84.70%, 87.05% and 90.58% respectively. 5.70% reported adverse events. The most common adverse event was pruritus followed erythema, dryness and rash.Conclusions: Results of this study proves that ciclopirox is efficacious and safe in the management of dermatophytosis. This study also proves that ciclopirox is useful in those patients who failed to respond to other topical antifungal agents.