Anthelmintics

What are Anthelmintics?

Anthelmintics are a type of medicine that kills helminths. Helminths are worm-like parasites such as flukes, roundworms, and tapeworms.

It is important that anthelmintics are selectively toxic to the parasite and not the host. Some work by inhibiting metabolic processes that are vital to the parasite but absent or not vital in the host. Other anthelmintics are poorly absorbed through the gut, which means the parasite is exposed to much higher concentrations of the anthelmintic than the host. Starvation or paralysis or the parasite result, followed by subsequent expulsion or digestion.

Anthelmintics are medications used to eradicate parasitic worms (helminthes) from the human body. Helminth infections are one of the most common infections, affecting a large proportion of the world’s population, mainly in tropical regions.

The primary drugs used for cestode infections are albendazole and praziquantel. Albendazole inhibits the uptake of glucose by the helminth and therefore the production of energy. It has a spastic or paralytic effect on the worm. Praziquantel also produces tetanus-like contractions of the musculature of the worm.

Anthelmintics are a group of antiparasitic antibiotics that treat infections by parasitic worms or helminths. They are roughly divided into two groups: vermifuges, which stun helminths; and vermicides, which kill them.

Most of the commonly used anthelmintics belong to one of three chemical classes, benzimidazoles, imidazothiazoles, and macrocyclic lactones, within which all individual compounds act in a similar fashion.