Vera Lúcia Teixeira de Freitas, Christina Terra Gallafrio Novaes, Ana Marli Christovam Sartori, Noemia Barbosa Carvalho, Sheila Cristina Vicente da Silva, Érika Shimoda Nakanishi, Fernando Salvador, Cleudson Nery de Castro, Rita Cristina Bezerra, Elizabeth Visone Nunes Westphalen, Caroline Medeji Ramos de Oliveira, Felipe Delatorre Busser, Yeh-Li Ho, Renata Buccheri, Carolina Bonilla, Maria Aparecida Shikanai-Yasuda
BACKGROUND: Trypanosoma cruzi and HIV coinfection can evolve with depression of cellular immunity and increased parasitemia. We applied quantitative PCR (qPCR) as a marker for preemptive antiparasitic treatment to avoid fatal Chagas disease reactivation and analyzed the outcome of treated cases. METHODOLOGY: This mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal study included 171 Chagas disease patients, 60 coinfected with HIV. Of these 60 patients, ten showed Chagas disease reactivation, confirmed by parasites identified in the blood, cerebrospinal fluid, or tissues, 12 exhibited high parasitemia without reactivation, and 38 had low parasitemia and no reactivation...
February 2024: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases