Antifungal Agents and Therapeutic Approaches in the Treatment of Invasive Fungal Infections

Invasive fungal infection has been a major health concern for decades in humans. Globally, millions of serious infections are reported each year, leading to significant mortality rates and imposing a substantial health burden across populations. After the COVID-19 pandemic, complications from co-infections, secondary infections, and superinfections in critically ill patients have become a major concern, which further worsened the scenario. Co-morbidity and mortality in immunodeficient patients are mainly associated with Aspergillus spp., Candida spp., and Mucorales. The main problem in fungal infection is seldom construed initially, intensifying the infection and hindering treatment. The increase in fungal infections can be linked to a range of social and medical factors that inadvertently facilitate their spread. Fungal isolates employ different mechanisms to invade the host immune system, and limited availability of drug arsenal, administration mode, toxicity association, drug-drug interaction, and the emergence of antifungal resistance challenge the therapeutic approach. In this review article, we highlighted the antifungal agents, their site of action, the development of drug resistance against the classical drug available in the treatment of fungal infections, and recently developed novel antifungals and other alternative approaches such as using a combination of either two known antifungal agents or one known antifungal with a non-antifungal agent for invasive fungal infection treatment.