[Antimycotic susceptibility testing of yeasts important in dermato-venereology: methods, results and clinical relevance]

Abstract

During the last decades many different methods have been devised for testing the antimicrobial susceptibility of yeasts in vitro. These methods range from agar diffusion and agar dilution to macro- and micro-broth-dilution methods. Although the ideal method has not yet been found, interest is currently focussed on micro-dilution tests. Yeasts that cause disease in man are not generally susceptible to the most frequently used antimycotics. This is especially true of 5-fluorocytosine, but strains resistant to ketoconazole, nystatin and amphotericin B have also been found. So far, many of the data obtained from in vitro studies of the antimicrobial susceptibility of yeasts have been found not to be closely correlated with clinical outcome. Most recently this situation has changed greatly, however, and this seems to be due to a large extent to new test procedures.