Premium
Perfiles serológicos y evaluación de parasitemias por PCR y cultivo sanguíneo en individuos con infección crónica por Trypanosoma cruzi tratados con benzonidazol
Author(s) -
Aguiar Camila,
Batista Angelica M.,
Pavan Tycha B. S.,
Almeida Eros A.,
Guariento Maria E.,
Wanderley Jamiro S.,
Costa Sandra C. B.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
tropical medicine and international health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.056
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1365-3156
pISSN - 1360-2276
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3156.2011.02936.x
Subject(s) - serology , trypanosoma cruzi , xenodiagnosis , chagas disease , iif , medicine , chemotherapy , benznidazole , trypanosomiasis , immunology , gastroenterology , biology , antibody , parasite hosting , indirect immunofluorescence , world wide web , computer science
Objective To evaluate the serological and parasitological status of patients with chronic Chagas disease (CD) after chemotherapy with benzonidazole. Methods Retrospective study of patients treated with benzonidazole (5 mg/kg/day for 60 days) between 1980 and 2010. Twenty‐nine patients who had CD confirmed by two reagent immunological tests and/or one positive xenodiagnosis before treatment were included. Conventional serology (ELISA and IIF) and parasitological tests (haemoculture and N‐PCR) were performed. Results At the time of treatment, the mean age of patients was 36 ± 7.24 years (20–39 years) and the time post‐treatment varied from 1 to 29 years. After chemotherapy, all individuals had reagent ELISA and 93.1% had positive results for the IIF test. T. cruzi DNA was detected by N‐PCR in 48.3%. Negative results were observed in 41.4% and inconclusive ones in 10.3%. Haemoculture was negative for all individuals. Conclusions Our results suggest that N‐PCR may be useful in the early identification of therapeutic failure of CD. Although it is difficult to determine parasitological cure in negative N‐PCR cases, we can infer that this condition represents a declination of parasitaemia as a favourable consequence of aetiological treatment.