Chagas' disease remains a major public health concern throughout much of Latin America. In Brazil, segments of the population experience Trypanosoma cruzi infection rates as high as 65%, indicating that control programs are still needed. Few data are available concerning people's health beliefs related to Chagas' disease in heavily infected populations. Such health beliefs may significantly imp...

Chagas disease is a chronic infection caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi). It has a worldwide distribution affecting at least 8--10 million people. In nonendemic countries, Chagas disease is an emerging illness and has become a public health problem. Most of the patients are asymptomatic, but about 30% of the individuals infected with T. cruzi develop clinically relevant syndro...

Chagas disease is a pleomorphic clinical entity that has several unique features. The aim of this study is to summarise some of the recent contributions from our research group to knowledge of the morbidity and prognostic factors in Chagas heart disease. A retrospective study suggested that ischaemic stroke associated with left ventricular (LV) apical thrombi is the first clinical manifestation...

A new case of spontaneous cure of human Chagas' disease is described in Uruguay. An 87-year-old man who had a typical acute phase of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in 1947 and never received specific treatment against the disease, when examined in 1998 revealed several completely negative parasitological and serological tests, including traditional serology, PCR and flow cytometry. As a whole, suc...

The Western blot method, using antigens from epimastigote forms of the Trypanosoma cruzi Y strain, was evaluated for the confirmatory diagnosis of Chagas' disease. Serum samples were obtained from 136 chagasic patients (Group I), 23 patients with inconclusive serologic results for Chagas' disease (Group II), 53 patients with other diseases (Group III), and 50 healthy individuals (Group IV). The...

OBJECTIVE To compare the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of chronic Chagas' heart disease to other dilated cardiomyopathies. METHODS A study comprising 128 patients from a heart disease center was carried out from 1993 to 2003. Of them, 51 (40%) were Trypasonoma cruzi positive. Epidemiological data was obtained through interviews and clinical and serological data from health serv...

BACKGROUND Reactivation of chronic Chagas disease, which occurs in approximately 20% of patients coinfected with HIV/Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), is commonly characterized by severe meningoencephalitis and myocarditis. The use of quantitative molecular tests to monitor Chagas disease reactivation was analyzed. METHODOLOGY Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of kDNA sequences, competitive (C-) PC...

BACKGROUND Few studies have assessed the burden of Chagas disease in non-endemic countries and most of them are based on prevalence estimates from Latin American (LA) countries that likely differ from the prevalence in migrants living in Europe. The aim of this study was to systematically review the existing data informing current understanding of the prevalence of Chagas disease in LA migrants...

No study has been performed on reflexes originating from receptors in the heart that might be involved in the pathological lesions of Chagas' heart disease. Our study was undertaken to analyze the role of cardiopulmonary reflex on cardiovascular control in Chagas' disease. We studied 14 patients with Chagas' disease without heart failure and 12 healthy matched volunteers. Central venous pressur...

Chagas disease is maintained in nature through the interchange of three cycles: the wild, peridomestic and domestic cycles. The wild cycle, which is enzootic, has existed for millions of years maintained between triatomines and wild mammals. Human infection was only detected in mummies from 4,000-9,000 years ago, before the discovery of the disease by Carlos Chagas in 1909. With the beginning o...