Topical treatments for fungal infections of the skin and nails of the foot.

Medium-term outcome (six weeks)
Data collected at 6 weeks from 2 trials (n = 1730, Ablon
1996; Bergstresser 1993) comparing 1% allylamines (naftifine,
terbinafine) versus 1% azoles used for 1 to 2 weeks (oxiconazole,
clotrimazole) produced a statistically significant relative reduction
in treatment failure of 66% (RR 0.34, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.52;
Analysis 6.2), favouring allylamines. Only one of these trials had
follow up data of at least 80%of those originally randomised (
Ablon 1996), but the results of both trials were very similar and
these data provide a similar relative risk of treatment failure (0.33,
95% CI 0.20 to 0.56; Analysis 6.3).
A L’Abbé plot of the outcomes at 6 weeks (Figure 4) shows the
allylamines had treatment failure rates of around 15% to 20%,
compared to 50% to 70% for the azoles (Methods, Assessment of
heterogeneity for more details of L’Abbé plots and how to interpret
them).
Topical treatments for fungal infections of the skin and nails of the foot. (Review)
Copyright © 2009 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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