الفهرس 
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Abstract
Oral candidiasis is an opportunistic infection of the oral cavity caused by an overgrowth of Candida yeasts. Its management is based on the use of topical or systemic antifungal drugs beside correction of the predisposing factors. The current antifungals have several problems including toxicity and drug resistance leading to failure of the treatment and increasing the recurrence of this disease. Hence the need for effective compounds that have low toxicity leads to entrance of natural products in treatment of oral candidiasis. from these molecules, curcumin (CUR) is considered as a promising natural antifungal drug. Curcumin is a yellow pigment in the spice turmeric(Curcuma longa). Studies have reported that curcumin has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-survival, antiproliferative, anti-invasive and antiangiogenic activity beside its antifungal effect. Its poor solubility in aqueous solvents results in poor oral bioavailability and fast metabolism. Nanotechnology has entered to medicine to enhance the solubility of the drugs, thus improving their bioavailability. Moreover, the nanosized drugs enter the cells easily with a high affinity to target specific cytosolic sites such as proteins, nucleic acids, and other small molecules. So it is considered an excellent alternative method for drug administration.
Study objective: A clinical and microbiological evaluation of using topical nanocurcumin suspension to treat oral candidiasis and comparing it to curcumin and conventional antifungal treatment in a murine model.
Materials and methods: We randomly divided 39 female mice into three groups of 13 animals. After induction of oral candidiasis, group 1 received nanocurcumin at 64 µg/ml, group 2 received curcumin at 128 µg/ml, and group 3 received nystatin 100000 U/ml. All animals received topical treatment twice daily for 10 days. After 10 days, all animals were sacrificed. We performed clinical and microbiological evaluations at baseline, day 5, and day 10.
Results: By the end of the treatment, nanocurcumin promoted a significant reduction in the number of candida colonies. There was no statistically significant difference clinically and microbiologically between the three studied groups.
Conclusions: Nanocurcumin has a good antifungal effect as curcumin and nystatin. It can be considered a new treatment modality for oral candidiasis, solving the solubility problem of curcumin and avoiding the toxicity of its solvents. Moreover, it helps in solving the recurrence problems that happen with the development of nystatin drug resistance.
Keywords: Curcumin, Nanotechnology, Nanocurcumin, Oral candidiasis.