Treatment of chronic human Chagas disease with itraconazole and allopurinol. Preliminary report Tratamiento de la enfermedad de Chagas humana crónica con itraconazol y alopurinol. Informe preliminar.

Abstract

The aim of this work was to assess the efficacy of itraconazole and allopurinol in chronic Chagas disease. Two hundred two subjects (137 infected, 59 with Chagas cardiopathy and 6 with non chagasic cardiopathy) were randomly assigned to be treated with itraconazole (87 subjects receiving 6 mg/kg/day for 120 days), allopurinol (68 subjects receiving 8.5 mg/kg/day for 60 days) or placebo (47 subjects during 60 days). Medications were well tolerated. Indirect hemagglutination test was modified in 5 subjects (3.2%) after treatment. Initially positive xenodiagnosis became negative in 34 of 36 subjects (94.4%) treated with itraconazole and 8 of 10 subjects (80%) treated with allopurinol. Initially normal EKG was not modified in 100% of patients receiving placebo, 84.9% receiving itraconazole and 86.7% receiving allopurinol. Initially abnormal EKG became normal in 10 of 31 subjects (32%) receiving itraconazole, 8 of 20 (40%) receiving allopurinol and none of 8 receiving placebo. It is conclud