Bone marrow cell transplantation in Chagas' disease heart failure: report of the first human experience.

Background: Heart failure due to Chagas' disease (HFCD) is a progressive inflammatory cardiomyopathy that affects millions of individuals in Latin America. Studies using mice models of HFCD indicate that bone marrow mononuclear cell transplantation (BMCT) may reduce inflammation, fibrosis, and improve myocardial function.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate, for the first time in humans, the safety and efficacy of BMCT to the myocardium of patients with HFCD.

The close relationship between South African and Latin American HTLV type 1 strains corroborated in a molecular epidemiological study of the HTLV type 1 isolates from a blood donor cohort.

It has been difficult to explain why all HTLV-1 sequences in Salvador, a city in the northeast of Brazil, belong to the Transcontinental (A) subgroup of the Cosmopolitan (a) subtype, since according to historical data the vast majority of slaves brought to Brazil (through Salvador) came from west Africa, where only the western African subgroup (C) has been found. To shed more light on this subject we conducted a phylogenetic analysis of 23 isolates from blood donors of Salvador. DNA was extracted and submitted to a nested PCR for amplification of the entire LTR region.