Fluconazole therapy for experimental cryptococcosis and candidiasis in the rabbit.

Fluconazole is a second-generation azole compound with broad-spectrum antifungal activity. It has been examined in several animal models emphasizing important clinical sites of infection with common yeast pathogens. The drug has an excellent pharmacokinetic profile for central nervous system, renal, and ocular infections; at these sites fluconazole has been successful in the treatment of infections with Cryptococcus neoformans or Candida albicans. On the basis of the experience in animals, fluconazole should be critically evaluated in the treatment of human mycoses such as cryptococcosis of the central nervous system and renal/ocular candidiasis. This agent represents the new wave of interest in the increasingly troublesome problem of deep-seated fungal infections.