Epidemiological features, echocardiographic findings, and parasite load in patients with Chagas disease.

Hilda Maria Benevides Da Silva De Arruda Arruda,Antonia Marilene Da Silva,Daniel Vasconcelos,Maria Regina Fernandes De Oliveira,Elza Ferreira Noronha,Marcelle Araújo Ribeiro

doi:10.1590/0037-8682-0541-2018

Abstract

Chagas disease is a major public health problem that is endemic in Brazil and Latin America. This study aimed to determine the socioeconomic, demographic, and clinical characteristics of 171 patients (mean age, 45 years; female, 65%) with Chagas disease at Hospital Universitário de Brasília, Federal District, Brazil. We implemented this cross-sectional study using a clinical epidemiological questionnaire, electrocardiography, echocardiography, and quantitative detection of Trypanosoma cruzi DNA in blood using qRT-PCR. Among the patients, 26.3% had a full elementary education, and 13.2% were illiterate. Most (63.6%) were economically classified as class C, and 51.5% were born in Bahia state. A total of 62.0% participants reported previous contact with the triatomine bug. The clinical forms of the disease were indeterminate (69.51%), cardiac (15.24%), digestive (10.37%), and mixed (4.88%). The most common electrocardiographic abnormality was complete right bundle branch block in association with a divisional anterosuperior block. Only 14.6% of the patients complied with benznidazole medication for at least 60 days, and 164 of them were assessed by echocardiography. The parasite load was positive in 56% of the patients. Chagas disease affected mostly women, with the indeterminate chronic form of the disease.

Highlights

Chagas disease is a major public health problem that is endemic in Brazil and Latin America
We aimed to determine the socioeconomic, demographic and clinical characteristics, echocardiographic findings and parasite loads of patients with Chagas disease (CD) treated at Brasília University Hospital (HUB)
Among 164 (95.91%) of the 171 patients who were evaluated by conventional echocardiography, 158 (96%) of them volunteered to participate in quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) tests for T. cruzi DNA

Summary

Introduction

Chagas disease is a major public health problem that is endemic in Brazil and Latin America. This study aimed to determine the socioeconomic, demographic, and clinical characteristics of 171 patients (mean age, 45 years; female, 65%) with Chagas disease at Hospital Universitário de Brasília, Federal District, Brazil. Chagas disease (CD) remains a major public health issue in Brazil and Latin America[1,2,3]. The disease has spread to the USA and some European countries[5,6] This might be associated with the distribution of the chronic form of CD, other serious conditions associated with undetermined and cardiac and digestive forms, The migration and urbanization phenomena have improved the survival rates of patients affected by the disease. Development has improved housing conditions, decreased rural populations, and granted more access to health care systems where patients can access cardiopathy-specific medications, permanent

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