Differing phagocytic function of monocytes and neutrophils in Chagas' cardiopathy according to the presence or absence of congestive heart failure.

We evaluated the in vitro phagocytic function and the production of microbicidal oxygen radicals by monocytes and neutrophils of 9 Chagas' heart disease subjects with heart failure and 9 without the syndrome in comparison with 11 healthy subjects, by assessing phagocytosis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and NBT reduction by peripheral blood phagocytes. Phagocytic index of monocytes of chagasics without heart failure was significantly 6.7 and 10.

Digitalis inhibits and furosemide does not change the in vitro phagocytic function of neutrophils of healthy subjects.

This work evaluated the in vitro influence of digitalis and furosemide on the phagocytic function of neutrophils of healthy individuals. Phagocytosis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae by peripheral blood neutrophils of 20 healthy individuals was assessed in the absence or presence of deslanoside or furosemide. The Wilcoxon test was employed to compare the data expressed as median and extreme values.