Chagas' disease

Trypanocidal Constituents in Plants. 1. Evaluation of Some Mexican Plants for Their Trypanocidal Activity and Active Constituents in Guaco, Roots of Aristolochia taliscana.

“…Moreover, synthetic drugs, such as nifurtimox and benznidazole, have severe side effects. 2,3) There rises an urgent need to develop new drugs. In order to seek new chemotherapeutic agents from natural resources, we started a survey of trypanocidal constituents in Mexican plants.…”

Electrocardiography as a Diagnostic Method for Chagas Disease in Patients and Experimental Models

“…She had no cardiac, digestive or other clinical manifestations of the disease, and thus constitutes one of the best examples of the indeterminate stage of this disease. This form is seen in 60-70% of chronic patients, and 2-5% of patients in the indeterminate phase convert to a cardiac or digestive form each year, for reasons that are not yet clear (Umezawa et al 2000) This form was thought to be symptomless, but more sensitive tests have demonstrated that patients in this stage may present significant abnormalities (Ribeiro and Rocha 1998). According to cardiologists, this period is the most important to study because could be key in knowing which patient develops the cardiac form of infection (Elizari 1999).…”

“…There are 3 stages in Chagas disease: the acute one with a local inflammatory lesion that appears at the site where the metacyclic trypomastigotes enter, and the parasite spreads throughout the host organism (Prata 2001, Umezawa et al 2000; the chronic phase in which the diversity and severity of the symptoms range from a mild electrocardiographic alteration to sudden death due to cardiac dysrhythmias, varing in different patients and in different regions (Storino & Milei 1994). In this disease the heart is the organ most commonly involved and the dysrhythmias , branch blocks and cardiac heart failure are symptoms of the 30% of patients that develop chagasic cardiomiopathy (Storino & Milei, 1994;Andrade, 1999).…”

Targeting Monoclonal Antibodies to the Tumor Microenvironment for Cancer Therapy/Immunotherapy

“…Approximately 30 to 40% of the infected patients may develop megacolon, heart failure and cardiomegaly during the chronic phase of the disease, even many years after the acute infection [1] . Yet, the majority (about 60 to 70%) of the patients that progresses to the chronic phase of the infection remains clinically healthy [7] . Recently, results of a multicenter, double-blinded, controlled clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of a trypanocidal drug (benznidazole) to halt the disease progression concluded that this pharmacological treatment did not confer protection against disease [8,9] .…”