A Randomized Controlled Trial to Compare the Clinical Outcomes With Six Months of Therapy With Oral Itraconazole Versus Oral Voriconazole for Management of Treatment naïve Subjects With Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis

Inclusion Criteria: The cases will include treatment naïve consecutive subjects with chronic cavitary pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA). The diagnosis of CPA will be made by a multidisciplinary team (pulmonary physicians, radiologist and microbiologist) based on composite of clinical, radiological and microbiological criteria.(9, 10) This includes presence of all the following: (i) one or more clinical symptoms (persistent cough, recurrent hemoptysis, weight loss, malaise, fever and dyspnea) for ≥3 months; (ii) slowly progressive or persistent radiological findings (one or more cavities and surrounding fibrosis, infiltrates, consolidation, with or without fungal ball or progressive pleural thickening) on computed tomography (CT) of the thorax; (iii) immunological (A.fumigatus-specific IgG \>27 mgA/L or positive Aspergillus precipitins) or microbiological evidence of Aspergillus infection (growth of Aspergillus in respiratory secretions or serum galactomannan index \>0.6 or BALF galactomannan index \>1.4); and, (iv) exclusion of other pulmonary disorders with similar presentation. Exclusion Criteria: Subjects with any of the following will be excluded: (i) failure to provide informed consent; (ii) patients on immunosuppressive drugs, intake of prednisolone (or equivalent) \>10 mg for at least 3 weeks or a diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus syndrome; (iii) intake antifungal azoles for \>3 weeks in the preceding six months; (iv) subjects with active pulmonary infection due…