Opportunistic fungal infections are major causes of morbidity and mortality in patients with single or multiple defects in their immunity. Antifungal agents targeting the pathogen remain the treatment of choice for fungal infections. However, antifungal agents are toxic to the host mainly due to the close evolutionary similarity of fungi and humans. Moreover, antifungal therapy is ineffective in patients with immunosuppression. For this reason, there is an increased demand to develop novel strategies to enhance immune function and augment the existing antifungal drugs. In recent times, targeting the immune system to improve impaired host immune responses becomes a reasonable approach to improve the effectiveness of antifungal drugs. In this regard, immunomodulating therapeutic agents that turn up the immune response in the fight against fungal infections hold promise for enhancing the efficacy and safety of conventional antifungal therapy. In general, immunomodulating therapies are safe with decreased risk of resistance and broad spectrum of activity. In this review, therefore, clinical evidences supporting the opportunities and challenges of immunomodulation therapies in the treatment of invasive fungal infections are included.

机会性真菌感染是免疫力单一或多种缺陷的患者发病和死亡的主要原因。靶向病原体的抗真菌剂仍然是真菌感染的治疗选择。然而，抗真菌剂对宿主有毒，这主要是由于真菌和人类在进化上的相似性。此外，抗真菌治疗对免疫抑制患者无效。由于这个原因，对开发新颖的策略以增强免疫功能和增强现有抗真菌药物的需求日益增加。近年来，针对免疫系统以改善受损的宿主免疫反应已成为提高抗真菌药物有效性的合理方法。在这方面，在对抗真菌感染中提高免疫应答的免疫调节治疗剂有望增强常规抗真菌治疗的功效和安全性。通常，免疫调节疗法是安全的，具有降低的耐药性风险和广泛的活性范围。因此，在本综述中，包括支持免疫调节疗法在侵袭性真菌感染治疗中的机遇和挑战的临床证据。