Mieczysław Dymon
Farmakoterapia chorób pasożytniczych
2007-07-26
Pharmacotherapy of parasitic diseases. Prevention and treatment of parasitic infestations have in the recent years become a serious medical and epidemiological problem. Prognostic data for the year 2025 relating to the incidence of parasitic infections in humans are not optimistic at all, showing that the incidence rate will grow. There are a number of reasons for that. One of them may be that of increasing resistance of parasites to antiparasitic agents, a good example being malaria or schistosomiasis. Another important reason may be a rise in the number of patients from highrisk groups for opportunistic infections, often resulting from the use of invasive diagnostic and therapeutic methods in other diseases. Not to be ignored is also the fact that there are no successful vaccines against parasites and no optimal methods of treatment of parasitoses and no drugs effective against all clinical forms of an infestation. In this article, the author presents the mechanisms of acquisition of drug resistance by parasites and discusses the most common reasons for diagnostic and therapeutic failures in malaria. The author also describes the therapeutic options in the treatment of various clinical forms of congenital and acquired toxoplasmosis.