Publication:

Prescribing patterns of systemic antifungal medications in Indian patients with invasive fungal infections: a multicenter retrospective study

Background Objectives of the study was to describe the utilization pattern of systemic antifungal agents in Indian patients with invasive fungal infections (IFIs).

Methods This real-world, multicenter (127 centers), retrospective analysis included data of patients receiving systemic antifungal medications at various centers across India. The study data was collected between April 2021 and March 2022.

Results Data of a total of 323 patients was analyzed. The mean age of patients was 54±13.52 years. There was male preponderance seen in this study (72.4%). Diabetes was the most common comorbidity (36.8%) followed by concomitant diabetes and hypertension (31.9%), hypertension (9.6%) and hematological malignancies (9.6%). The most common indication occurring in >10% of the patients and for whom systemic antifungals were used included pulmonary mucormycosis (33.1%) followed by invasive candidiasis (16.1%), sepsis (13.3%) and fungal pneumonia (11.8%). In total 323 patients, the most common antifungal drug prescribed was posaconazole (38.6%) followed by anidulafungin (32.8%), caspofungin (10.5%), fluconazole (9.3%) and micafungin (8.7%). Posaconazole was most commonly used for pulmonary mucormycosis (84.8%), fluconazole for sepsis (33.3%), caspofungin for fungal pneumonia (23.5%) and anidulafungin (33.1%), and micafungin (39.3%) for invasive candidiasis.

Conclusions This study provides real-world evidence on the demographics of Indian patients with IFIs and utilization pattern of systemic antifungals by health care physicians in clinical practice.