BACKGROUND Aging and migration have brought changes to the epidemiology and stroke has been shown to be independently associated with Chagas disease. We studied stroke correlates in cardiomyopathy patients with focus on the chagasic etiology. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We performed a cross-sectional review of medical records of 790 patients with a cardiomyopathy. Patients with chagasic (3...

Chagas disease in patients with HIV infection represents a potentially serious event with high case fatality rates. This study describes epidemiological and clinical aspects of deaths related to Chagas disease and HIV/AIDS coinfection in Brazil, 1999-2007. We performed a descriptive study based on mortality data from the nationwide Mortality Information System. Of a total of about 9 million dea...

Chronotropic incompetence is a common feature in Chagas' disease patients. New methodologies are now available to evaluate the chronotropic response in different subsets. The chronotropic-metabolic index (CMI) is one of these new indexes and quantifies the relationship between the increment of heart rate and the maximal oxygen consumption (VO2 max) during exercise testing. In normal subjects th...

An estimated 10 million people are infected with Trypanosoma cruzi (the parasite that causes Chagas disease) worldwide, mostly in Latin America. Chagas disease was once entirely confined to the Region of the Americas – principally Latin America – but it has now spread to other continents. Chagas disease is curable if treatment is initiated soon after infection. Up to 30% of chronically infected...

Chagas disease is an infectious caused by Trypanosoma cruzy, this a highly frequent in rural areas of Latin America, it characterized presenting two phases, acute one which often asymptomatic and with low mortality mostly conferred to myocarditis due Chagas, chronic phase consists three presentations, indeterminate, digestive cardiac, the latter being most serious cause greater complications hi...

Chagas disease (human American trypanosomiasis) is a zoonose caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. Vectors are Triatoma spp. insects. T. cruzi can also be transmitted by blood transfusion, organ transplantation, and transplacentally. Infection is generally acquired during infancy. The acute infection is rarely symptomatic and is followed by a chronic phase. Chronic infected people are asym...

BACKGROUND Sudden death has been considered the main cause of death in patients with Chagas heart disease. Nevertheless, this information comes from a period before the introduction of drugs that changed the natural history of heart failure. We sought to study the mode of death of patients with heart failure caused by Chagas heart disease, comparing with non-Chagas cardiomyopathy. METHODS AND...

BACKGROUND Non-invasive cardiological methods have been used for the identification of myocardial damage in Chagas disease. OBJECTIVE To verify whether the rest/stress myocardial perfusion scintigraphy is able to identify early myocardial damage in the indeterminate form of Chagas disease. METHODS Eighteen patients with the indeterminate form of Chagas Disease and the same number of normal ...

Chagas' disease is one of the most important public health problems in South America and Mexico. Migrations from rural areas into urban zones have contributed to the spread of the disease. The main targets of the disease within the body are the heart, the alimentary tract, and the nervous system. In the acute phase of the disease, the parasite responsible for the disease can be identified in th...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Chagas disease is the most common cause of myocarditis in Latin America, including Venezuela. Some 25% of patients progress to chronic chagasic cardiomyopathy, which is characterized by heart failure and arrhythmias. The serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) have prognostic value in non-chagasic cardiopathy. The goal of this study was to i...