Overview of the treatment of disseminated fungal infections.

Disseminated fungal infections are significant causes of mortality and morbidity in the immunocompromised patient. There is now an increasing array of drugs available for their treatment. While amphotericin B is still the main choice for many of these infections the imidazole and triazole drugs have specific roles to play in the management of these patients. However, there remain a number of important problems, particularly the treatment of the patients with continuing immunosuppression and the emergence of antifungal drug resistance. There are also too few comparative studies of drugs within the increasing number of antifungal agents which would provide a reliable basis for choice.