2023-07-04 07:24:11
It itches, burns, hurts and often there is an unpleasant discharge – vaginal thrush is still a very shameful topic. At the same time, there is hardly a woman who has not been confronted with it before. As a rule, the infection can be treated well, but the fungus keeps coming back, which is referred to as chronification. And then it is very difficult to treat.
It affects more than 130 million women worldwide every year. The Viennese gynecologist Marion Noe knows from her practice that six percent of all women of childbearing age suffer from frequent recurrences, even if they are repeatedly treated with medication once morest fungal diseases, sometimes for months. “In our study, more than 50 percent of the patients had had vaginal thrush for more than two years with an average frequency of more than six acute episodes per year,” she reports. The doctor, gynecologist and specialist in endocrinology founded the biotech-pharmaceutical company ProFem in 2012, because she feels there is still no solution for too many, sometimes chronic, women’s diseases and she always gives her patients “empty hands” in her practice sat opposite.
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“Breakthrough”
According to the first results of a phase 3 study conducted from 2019 to 2022, there should now be a “breakthrough in women’s medicine made in Austria”. The newly developed drug should be applicable locally, effective quickly, safe and well tolerated. This should result in a significant enrichment of the previous therapeutic possibilities.
Because chronic vaginal thrush not only means an enormous physical and psychological burden for the women affected, but also represents a major economic burden for the global health system. Even if the disease is not life-threatening, the recurring, very unpleasant symptoms cause a severe impairment of the quality of life and sexual health. The disease also causes depressive moods and anxiety disorders to develop far above average in the women affected. “As a result, they not only have to visit doctors and emergency facilities, but also psychologists and psychiatrists – which often takes a lot of effort,” reports Noe. Too many women are ashamed to talk regarding the problem, sometimes even with her as a gynecologist, because diseases like these are still taboo.
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The drug should be available in pharmacies under the name Candiplus in regarding two years. In the meantime, Noe wants to work on the treatment of other forms of fungal infections as well as on the development of innovative therapeutic approaches for the treatment of irritable bladder and incontinence.
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