BACKGROUND: Fusarium onychomycoses are weakly responsive or unresponsive to standard onychomycosis treatments with oral terbinafine and itraconazole. OBJECTIVE: To examine whether the use of terbinafine and itraconazole, which are highly effective in fighting Trichophyton onychomycoses, could be a cause of the high incidence of Fusarium nail infections. METHODS: Polymerase chain reaction methods were used to detect both Fusarium spp. and Trichophyton spp. in nails of patients who had either received treatment previously or not. RESULTS: No significant microbiological differences were found between treated and untreated patients. In 24 of 79 cases (30%), Fusarium spp. was detected in samples of patients having had no previous antifungal therapy and when Trichophyton spp. grew in culture. CONCLUSION: Oral terbinafine and itraconazole treatments do not appear to favor the establishment of Fusarium spp. in onychomycosis.
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Verrier et al. (2014) studied this question.