AntiMYX Tincture

How do skin and nail fungi develop?

Both skin fungal infections (dermatomycoses) and nail fungal infections (onychomycoses) are widespread in Germany. Older people and diabetics in particular belong to the risk group, as their blood circulation is often restricted and their immune system is weakened. The main cause of skin and nail fungi are filamentous fungi, also known as dermatophytes. The first signs of a fungal infection are itching and reddening of the skin or discolouration and thickening of toenails.

What is the most effective way to treat skin and nail fungus?
The most effective treatment is always determined by the visual findings and the detection of the pathogen by a specialist or laboratory. In the case of nail fungus, regardless of the chosen treatment method, it is of the utmost importance to remove all infected nail material. This should be done at regular intervals in order to optimise the effect of the antifungal agents used.

What exactly does an inhibition test examine?

The inhibition zone test, also known as the diffusion test, tests the sensitivity of microorganisms (e.g. bacteria or fungi) to certain inhibitors. A culture medium (here: malt extract agar) is inoculated with the microorganism. A punched hole is created in the culture medium into which the inhibitor is introduced. An incubation period dependent on the microorganism leads to growth on the agar plate. The effectiveness of the inhibitor can be seen in a visible area around the punch hole in which growth is inhibited - the so-called inhibition zone. The absence of an inhibition zone indicates resistance and therefore low or no efficacy of the inhibitor.

What was found in the inhibition test?

The efficacy of peclavus PODOmed AntiMYX Tincture was qualitatively evaluated with three other inhibitors in this test.

• Ciclopoli®:
  Ciclopoli® with the active ingredient ciclopirox is a broad-spectrum antimycotic that also has an anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effect. 
• Plasma activated water (PAW) with pH value 1:
  Plasma activated water is produced from electricity, water and air and has a low pH value and reactive species, which generally have an inhibitory effect on fungi.
• Nitric acid (HNO3) with pH value 1:
  Used as a comparison product to plasma-activated water with the same pH value. It is intended to provide an indication of whether a potential effect of the plasma-activated water is based on the species it contains or on the lowered pH value. 

The test strain used was Trichophyton rubrum (T. rubrum), which is a dermatophyte and one of the most common pathogens of skin and nail fungi.

In addition to the inhibitors to be analysed, distilled water was used as a negative control. A negative control should not cause any inhibition of growth and serves as a reference value for assessing the results. The incubation of the fungus was carried out over 7 days at a temperature of 24 +/-1 °C. The amount of inhibitor applied to the punch hole was 0.2 ml. In addition, 0.01 ml of the inhibitor was dripped directly onto the agar plate in the lower part of the culture medium in order to obtain an indication of the relationship between the amount of inhibitor and its effectiveness.