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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Med.
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Pathogenesis and Therapy
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1489109
This article is part of the Research Topic Strategies for Counteracting Antimicrobial Resistance in Low-resource Settings View all articles

Optimizing Antifungal Therapy: A systematic review of Pharmacist interventions, Stewardship approaches and Outcomes

Provisionally accepted
Zunaira Akbar Zunaira Akbar 1*Muhammad Aamir Muhammad Aamir 2Zikria Saleem Zikria Saleem 3
  • 1 Riphah International University (Lahore), Lahore, Pakistan
  • 2 University of Lahore, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
  • 3 Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Specific evidence regarding pharmacist role in antifungal stewardship is emerging. The purpose of this review is to identify Pharmacist driven antifungal stewardship interventions to optimize antifungal therapy. A systematic review was conducted using PRISMA guidelines. Data (2018Data ( -2023) ) were collected through Google scholar and PubMed. Owing to variations in interventions and outcome metrics, the collected data were presented descriptively. Conclusions were derived through a qualitative synthesis of the identified findings. A total of 232 articles were retrieved and after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria 27 were included in review. Among 8 studies evaluating impact of Pharmacist interventions on antifungal consumption, 6 studies reported significant decline in DDD/1000 patient days and DOT/1000 patient days, one reported non-significant decline and one reported increase in utilization of echinocandins. Educational intervention was the most commonly used stewardship approach. 19 studies reporting data on various clinical outcomes. Mortality and length of hospital stay remains non-significant, but occurrence of ADR decreased significantly, and quality of antifungal use improved significantly. Pharmacist led AFS has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of antifungal treatments by improving their overall quality, reduction in consumption and adverse events. Health care system should encourage multidisciplinary collaboration where pharmacists play a central role in decision-making processes regarding antifungal use.

    Keywords: Antifungal1, stewardship2, Pharmacist3, Consumption4, Clinical5

    Received: 31 Aug 2024; Accepted: 18 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Akbar, Aamir and Saleem. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Zunaira Akbar, Riphah International University (Lahore), Lahore, Pakistan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.