Praktické lekárnictvo 3/2017

New antibiotics and antimycotics

Antibiotics represent a revolution in the treatment of bacterial diseases and have contributed to a significant reduction in mortality to infections. Increasing bacterial resistance, however, threatens patient care and becomes one of the most important public health threats of the 21st century. The development of new antibiotics has stagnated for a long time. The cost of clinical trials and registration is high and there is a lack of return on investments. In early 2017, the WHO published a list of bacteria for which we urgently need new antibiotics. In 2011, the European Commission proposed the implementation of a five-year action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance, which included actions to promote collaborative research and development efforts to bring new antimicrobials to patients. Currently, several new antibiotics are approved or clinically tested, which could lead to a shift in the treatment of severe and difficult to treat multi-resistant gram-positive and gram-negative infections. Due to the increasing number of immunocompromised patient there is also increased number of invasive fungal infections. In the treatment of mycotic infection, new azole antimycotics are now available. Posaconasole has new drug forms and isavuconazol is new azole with wide spectrum, especially on filamentous fungi.

Keywords: new antibiotics, new antimycotics, multi-resistant bacteria, clinical trials, mechanism of action