A four-year followup survey of Chagasic cardiopathy in Chile.

The natural history of Chagasic cardiopathy is still not well-known, mainly because innumerable clinical pictures develop without symptoms, and the cases seen at hospitals are merely the most overtly serious. This circumstance may tend to create a false impression that this cardiopathy is relatively benign, because of the small demand it generates for hospital beds in comparison with other pathologies. Hence, if it were possible to elucidate what happens to the great majority of asymptomatic cases, that would constitute an important forward step in understanding a disease that afflicts millions of people in the Ameri-