Mucoadhesive Antifungal Delivery Vehicles Study

Mucoadhesive antifungal delivery vehicles are as effective as topical agents for the treatment of oral candidiasis suggests a study published in Oral Diseases.

Study Overview

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the clinical and mycological effectiveness of mucoadhesives as vehicles for drugs or natural products in the treatment of oral candidiasis. The search for articles was carried out in the following databases before August 2023:

• Medline/PubMed
• SCOPUS
• EMBASE
• Web of Science
• Cochrane Library
• SciELO

We selected the studies, extracted the data, evaluated the study quality, graded the evidence, performed the risk of bias, and carried out meta-analysis.

Results

A total of 389 potentially relevant articles were identified, and 11 studies (1869 participants) met the inclusion criteria of the systematic review. The overall risk of bias was considered low. The most common presentation of mucoadhesives was tablets, with miconazole being the most frequently used drug in the delivery system. Mucoadhesives demonstrated comparable efficacy with topical or systemic antifungal agents, with no significant differences between treatments in terms of clinical (RR = 0.907; 95CI = 0.3–1.297; p = 0.591; I² = 64.648) or mycological (RR = 0.95; 95CI = 0.667–1.360; p = 0.789; I² = 73.271) efficacy. Mucoadhesives may be a suitable alternative to conventional treatments, with the advantage of reducing the frequency of application by up to 5 times and the daily dosage by up to 20 times.

Reference

Sugio, C. Y. C., Garcia, A. A. M. N., Kitamoto, K. A. A., Santiago Júnior, J. F., Soares, S., Porto, V. C., Urban, V. M., Ferrari, P. C., Fernandes, M. H., & Neppelenbroek, K. H. (2024). Mucoadhesive delivery systems for oral candidiasis treatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Oral Diseases, 00, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/odi.14928