[The treatment of pulmonary aspergilloma with itraconazole]

We evaluated the efficacy of Itraconazole (ITZ), a newly developed triazole antifungal agent, in 5 cases of pulmonary aspergilloma. A daily dose of 100-200 mg of ITZ was given orally for 5 to 20 months. In one patient, administration of ITZ was discontinued because of mild and transient hepatic injury. On computerized tomography and conventional roentgenogram of the chest, improvement was clearly observed in 2 of the remaining 4 cases. Symptomatic improvement, mainly disappearance of airway bleeding, was seen in 2 cases. Thus the overall improvement rate was 50% (two out of 4). No adverse response other than the hepatic injury mentioned above occurred. In one patient, who had two fungus balls previously, one of the fungus balls disappeared completely and the other decreased significantly in size during the course of treatment. In this case, the daily dose of ITZ was larger (200 mg once a day) and the plasma concentration of ITZ was extremely higher (2068 ng/ml) than in other cases (137-330 ng/ml). We conclude that ITZ is an efficacious drug in the treatment of pulmonary aspergilloma, and that this drug may be even more efficacious if we keep higher plasma concentration of ITZ.