Abstract
Sera from 30 chronic chagasic patients together with 52 control samples (34 with other pathological conditions and 18 from normal individuals) were titrated by the indirect immunofluorescent technique (IFA) on Trypanosoma cruzi amastigotes. Acetone-fixed cryostat sections of skeletal muscle of Rockland mice 10 days post-infection with the RA isolate of T. cruzi were used as substrate. Results were compared with titres obtained by conventional IFA on epimastigotes. All 52 control sera had amastigote litres ⩽2 double dilutions (dd) as compared with epimastigote values. Out of the 30 chagasic samples, differences were ⩾4 dd (⩾1 log) for 22, 3 dd for 5 and ⩽2 dd for the remaining 3, when comparing amastigote and epimastigote titres. These results show that the use of amastigotes in cryostat sections of infected tissue for performing Chagas' serology is a simple, adequate and sensitive method.
Published Version
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