Posaconazole for Chronic Chagas Disease?

Current therapies for chronic Chagas disease — mainly benznidazole and nifurtimox — are limited by low cure rates and toxicity sufficient to prompt drug discontinuation in up to 30% of patients. Recent animal-model data suggest that posaconazole may represent a better treatment option.

To explore this possibility, researchers conducted a randomized, open-label clinical trial at three centers in Spain, comparing low-dose (100 mg twice daily) and high-dose (400 mg twice daily) posaconazole with benznidazole (150 mg twice daily) — each for 60 days — in adults with chronic Chagas disease. The primary endpoint was consistently negative results on real-time polymerase chain reaction testing for Trypanosoma cruzi DNA during follow-up, which lasted …