Abstract

ARRUA TORREANI, N et al. Chronic chagasic miocardiopathy in the Hospital de Clinicas and the Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Nacional de Asunción, Paraguay. An. Fac. Cienc. Méd. (Asunción) [online]. 2010, vol.43, n.1, pp.15-26. ISSN 1816-8949.

This is a cross-sectional descriptive study performed from 2006 to 2009 to determine the prevalence of chronic chagasic myocardiopathy in patients that attended the Hospital de Clínicas and the Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud. All patients with clinical records were subjected to electrocardiogram (ECG) and ecocardiogram while the epidemiological data were collected using a questionnaire filled in during a direct interview. ELISA was used to detect anti-T. cruzi antibodies and in the positive patients, an indirect immunofluorescence test was also carried out. Being 164 patients positive for T. cruzi antibodies; 43% were women and 57 % men, the age range was from 15 to 86 years old. Of the positive patients,only 90 were analyzed because they had complete information and 32% (29/90) of these presented alterations in the cardiologic evaluations; 60% of them were men and 40% women. Of the surveyed people, 43.3% were from the Central Department, 12.2% from Asunción, 11.1% from the Department of Paraguari, 10% from the Department of San Pedro and 7.8% from the Department of Cordillera. The high prevalence of cardiologic alterations (32%) found is a value close to previously published values. It is very important to continue this study in order to increase the sample size and obtain a larger representativity of the results. Based in these results, we emphasized the necessity of considering chagasic myocardiopathy in the clinical evaluations of the public health taking into account the high percentage of myocardiopathies found and the commitment of national cardiologists to eradicate and prevent this pathology, a common cause of sudden death especially when it is not early detected as it also affects young people in reproductive and working age.

Keywords : Trypanosoma cruzi; Chagasic Myocardiopathy; Chagas Diseases; Death Sudden.

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