Risk progression to chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy: influence of male sex and of parasitaemia detected by polymerase chain reaction.

Background: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) allows detection of Trypanosoma cruzi in blood throughout the course of Chagas' disease.

Objective: To determine whether T cruzi DNA detected by PCR is associated with progression to chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

[Medicine and history. Concerning of the case of a man with a tumour on his forehead].

This case report is about the sickness of a 59 year old priest, politician and war veteran who died in 1844. The case history is based on the detailed report of his doctor, gathered in a diary and later published. The collected clinical data relied exclusively on touch and observation.

[Survival of patients with myasthenia gravis after thymectomy. Analysis of 100 cases].

In order to evaluate the survival of patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) after thymectomy (T), 100 patients with MG in which T had been performed between 1967 and 1995 were studied. Patients were divided into different groups for their analysis: patients with thymoma (TI), 22 cases; and patients without thymoma (NTI), 78 cases. In addition those patients belonging to the latter group were further separated according to the date of their surgery into two other subgroups: patients operated before 1980 (A80), 43 cases; and after 1980 (D80), 35 cases; trying to evaluate the prognostic implications of the therapeutical advances achieved over the last 15 years.

[Regional changes of ventricular motility in patients with positive serology for Chagas disease].

The aim of the present study was to carry out a quantitative assessment of the regional left ventricular wall motion and diastolic function of patients with Chagas disease in different clinical stages. Twenty patients with positive immunofluorescence tests for Chagas disease were studied. Eight patients were asymptomatic (class I), 9 patients had electrocardiographic abnormalities (class II) and 3 patients had heart failure (class III).

Chronic Chagas' disease: possible mechanism of sinus bradycardia.

Objective: To determine the cause of sinus bradycardia in patients with chronic Chagas' disease by studying their sinus node function with pharmacological agents.

Design: Cohort study.

Setting: Referral tertiary care hospital in Cordoba, Argentina.

Abnormal left ventricular diastolic function in chronic Chagas' disease: an echocardiographic study.

Simultaneous M-mode echocardiograms and phonocardiograms were recorded in 19 patients with chronic Chagas' disease, and were digitised and compared with normal in order to study systolic and diastolic left ventricular function. Five of the patients were in New York Heart Association class 1, 9 in class 2, and 5 in class 3. Left ventricular cavity dimensions were increased in 3 and shortening fraction reduced in 1.

Left ventricular wall motion in patients with Chagas's disease.

The effect of early chronic Chagas's disease on the timing and extent of regional left ventricular wall motion was studied with a frame by frame analysis of left ventriculograms in nine patients and compared with those in 19 normal subjects. In all the patients there was hypokinesis or akinesis in the anteroapical region together with delay in the onset of inward movement. Hypokinesis of the proximal inferior segment was also present, but the time of onset of inward motion here was normal.

Prevalence of slow heart rates in chronic Chagas' disease.

The prevalence of slow heart rate was investigated among 222 patients with Chagas' disease, 50 normal subjects, and 55 patients with non-chagasic heart failure. In any decade of life the basal heart rate of patients with chagasic heart failure was always significantly lower (P less than 0.001) than the basal heart rate of non-chagasic heart failure patients, and also lower than the basal heart rate of normal subjects.

Distinctive abnormal responses to tilting test in chronic Chagas' disease.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the sympathetic nervous system function in 34 patients with chronic Chagas' disease. The tilting test was selected as an appropriate means to assess the adrenergic system function. Our results demonstrate that (a) all chagasics respond with a significantly smaller rise in diastolic blood pressure (0-3.