Recipient organisationNIHR Wellcome Trust Imperial Clinical Research Facility
NIHR supportRecorded as supported by this research centre
PeriodMar 2025 — Mar 2026
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Patients with chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) will receive a once-weekly intravenous infusion of rezafungin for six months, instead of daily infusions of existing drugs. This matters because CPA—a progressive, potentially life-threatening fungal lung infection affecting fewer than 1 in 100,000 people in the UK and Europe—has limited treatment options. Existing therapies, such as azole pills or daily intravenous amphotericin B and echinocandins, often fail due to drug resistance, poor tolerability, or the impracticality of daily hospital visits for long-term treatment. The disease carries a 14% mortality rate and severely degrades quality of life as lung function deteriorates. If rezafungin proves effective and safe, it could offer a practical alternative that requires only one hospital visit per week instead of seven. This would reduce the burden on patients and healthcare systems, improve treatment adherence, and potentially slow disease progression. The trial will track adverse events, lung function via CT scans at baseline and week 28, and patient-reported outcomes at baseline, week 13, and week 26. A follow-up visit occurs three weeks after treatment ends.
View original technical description
Chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) is a progressive an in many cases, potentially life-threatening fungal infection of the lungs. The disease is quite rare, affecting approximately less than 1 in 100,000 people in the UK and Europe. For these patients, one of the main factors of disease progression is rapid deterioration of the lungs which severely impacts quality of life and has a 14% mortality rate. Only very limited treatment options are available, such as a group of medications known as azoles, or Intravenous (IV medications known as amphotericin B or echinocandins). These treatments are not always practical or tolerated by these subjects due to the patient being resistent (ie azole resistance), or long term treatment not practical due to daily intra-venous (IV) infusions being required on a long term basis, and the associated risks and safety concerns of the longer term administration of these. This study aims to assess the effectiveness and safety of an alternative treatment known as rezafungin, which is administered intravenously once per week. All eligible subjects will be asked to attend a screening visit, to gather baseline data and perform tests such as blood tests, questionnaires, medical history and medication review. Two CT Scans will be performed either during the screening period or at the next visit (baseline visit) and at week 28. Two weeks after the screening visit, if still eligible, the subjects start a 6 month treatment period of IV infusions of rezafungin which will be administered each week for 26 weeks. Further questionnaires/assessments are carried out at the baseline visit and week 13. Further blood tests will be performed at some of the visits during the 6 month treatment period. The subjects will be asked to report all adverse events throughout the study and these will be documented accordingly by the study team. Following this, an end of treatment visit will take place a week later, then a follow up visit 3 weeks after.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know