Onychomycosis is a fungal infection that causes nail disfigurement, pain and infection and impacts millions of people throughout the world. Though several antifungal treatments are currently available, they often fail for various reasons.

Efinaconazole is the most recent broad-spectrum triazole antifungal drug which helps to improve nail penetration. Though its cure rate is good compared to other antifungals, the cost per bottle is over $600 with a full treatment requiring numerous bottles.

A research team from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences investigated the use of nanotechnology to make efinaconazole treatment more cost-effective. They found that efinaconazole combined with nitric oxide-releasing nanoparticles provides the same antifungal effect.

Adam Friedman, MD, the Professor of Dermatology and the lead author said, "Nanotechnology is being studied and employed in many areas of medicine and surgery to better deliver established imaging and therapeutic agents to ultimately improve patient outcomes; A quickly emerging roadblock in patient care is, unfortunately, access to medications due to rising cost and poor insurance coverage."

Friedman explained, "What we found was that we could impart the same antifungal activity at the highest concentrations tested of either alone by combining them at a fraction of these concentrations; The impact of this combo, which we visualized using electron microscopy as compared to either product alone, highlighted their synergistic damaging effects at concentrations that would be completely safe to human cells."