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Laser Therapy for Onychomycosis: Fact or Fiction?
Onychomycosis is a common fungal infection, afflicting some 10% of the adult population in industrialized countries. Aside from cosmetic concerns, onychomycosis can be the cause of toe and foot pain, as well as the underlying etiology for serious secondary bacterial infections and traumatic ulcerati...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29376898 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof1010044 |
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author | Liddell, Lucette Teel Rosen, Ted |
author_facet | Liddell, Lucette Teel Rosen, Ted |
author_sort | Liddell, Lucette Teel |
collection | PubMed |
description | Onychomycosis is a common fungal infection, afflicting some 10% of the adult population in industrialized countries. Aside from cosmetic concerns, onychomycosis can be the cause of toe and foot pain, as well as the underlying etiology for serious secondary bacterial infections and traumatic ulcerations. In select populations, such as diabetics, the latter conditions may even result in loss of all or part of the lower extremity. Thus, a simple, cost-effective and safe treatment for onychomycosis is highly desirable. Although both topical and oral systemic antifungal agents are available for this purpose, they are not always effective, carry some medical risks, are associated with potentially significant drug-drug interactions, and may be unacceptable to patient and healthcare provider alike. Physical modalities, such as laser therapy, therefore appear appealing. The question is whether laser treatment is sufficiently efficacious and safe to warrant the current high cost per treatment. The readily available literature on this controversy will be reviewed herein. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5770012 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57700122018-01-19 Laser Therapy for Onychomycosis: Fact or Fiction? Liddell, Lucette Teel Rosen, Ted J Fungi (Basel) Review Onychomycosis is a common fungal infection, afflicting some 10% of the adult population in industrialized countries. Aside from cosmetic concerns, onychomycosis can be the cause of toe and foot pain, as well as the underlying etiology for serious secondary bacterial infections and traumatic ulcerations. In select populations, such as diabetics, the latter conditions may even result in loss of all or part of the lower extremity. Thus, a simple, cost-effective and safe treatment for onychomycosis is highly desirable. Although both topical and oral systemic antifungal agents are available for this purpose, they are not always effective, carry some medical risks, are associated with potentially significant drug-drug interactions, and may be unacceptable to patient and healthcare provider alike. Physical modalities, such as laser therapy, therefore appear appealing. The question is whether laser treatment is sufficiently efficacious and safe to warrant the current high cost per treatment. The readily available literature on this controversy will be reviewed herein. MDPI 2015-04-03 /pmc/articles/PMC5770012/ /pubmed/29376898 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof1010044 Text en © 2015 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Liddell, Lucette Teel Rosen, Ted Laser Therapy for Onychomycosis: Fact or Fiction? |
title | Laser Therapy for Onychomycosis: Fact or Fiction? |
title_full | Laser Therapy for Onychomycosis: Fact or Fiction? |
title_fullStr | Laser Therapy for Onychomycosis: Fact or Fiction? |
title_full_unstemmed | Laser Therapy for Onychomycosis: Fact or Fiction? |
title_short | Laser Therapy for Onychomycosis: Fact or Fiction? |
title_sort | laser therapy for onychomycosis: fact or fiction? |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29376898 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof1010044 |
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