Sulphonamides and Sulphones

This chapter is focused on the sulphonamides and sulphones1 which are in current use as antimalarial drugs (mostly in combination with pyrimethamine). These are, mainly, the sulphonamides sulfamonomethoxine, sulfadoxine and sulfalene, the sulphone dapsone and, to some extent, also the derivatives of dapsone, diformyldapsone and acedapsone. Only the properties of the single drugs are discussed. (For those of the combinations with pyrimethamine and other inhibitors of dihydrofolic acid reductase, see this part, Chap. 6.) The sulphonamide probably best known, sulfadiazine, is included in most paragraphs as a reference, although it is not considered an antimalarial.