A plain language summary of the STRIVE and ReSTORE studies, which tested if rezafungin is effective and as safe as caspofungin at treating people with candidaemia and invasive candidiasis

What is this summary about? Candidaemia and invasive candidiasis are infections that can occur when a fungus called Candida gets into the blood and other parts of the body. These infections are common in hospitals, usually in people who have just had surgery or people with weakened immune systems. This is a summary of a paper that describes the combined findings from two studies called STRIVE and ReSTORE. These studies looked at how well a new medicine called rezafungin worked in people with candidaemia and invasive candidiasis, compared with a similar medicine called caspofungin. What are the key takeaways? This paper showed that rezafungin works well and is as safe as caspofungin for treating people with candidaemia and/or invasive candidiasis. The percentage of people who were alive after 30 days of treatment was similar with both medicines, and the number and type of side effects (unwanted effects on the body) caused by the two medicines were similar. Rezafungin was slightly faster at getting rid of Candida in the blood than caspofungin, which may make it useful for treating types of Candida that do not respond well to other medicines (known as resistant strains). What were the main conclusions reported by the researchers? Rezafungin can be used to treat candidaemia and/or invasive candidiasis. Doctors may choose to use rezafungin instead of current medicines for people with resistant types of infection because it is given at a higher starting dose, which may be better for getting rid of the fungus quickly. Who should read this article? This summary may be useful for people with candidaemia or invasive candidiasis and their families, and doctors and nurses who treat people with these diseases.