[Experience of fluconazole in pediatric patients].
Fluconazole is a triazole agent and possesses a potent antifungal activity against fungi such as Candida, Cryptococcus and Aspergillus. Fluconazole is well absorbed following oral administration and shows bioavailability almost comparable to that attained in intravenous administration. The serum half-life is as long as about 30 hours and distributed widely into organs and tissues. Because of these it is expected to exhibit good clinical efficacy in the deep-seated mycosis. We evaluated the efficacy of fluconazole given orally to 3 pediatric patients with deep mycosis and also with aim of evaluating its prophylactic effect, gave fluconazole to 4 patients who had high risks of mycotic infections. Pathogenic fungi isolated from the 3 patients with mycosis were all Candida albicans and diagnoses made were Candida pneumonia, oral candidiasis and gastrointestinal candidiasis. Clinical efficacies were judged to be good in all of the 3 patients and C. albicans were found eradicated following the treatment. In the 4 patients to whom fluconazole was given prophylactically, no mycosis developed. Fluconazole was well tolerated and no incidence of side effects or clinical laboratory parameter abnormalities were seen any of the patients involved in the study.