Radionuclide esophageal transit scintigraphy in chronic indeterminate and cardiac forms of Chagas disease.

Objectives: This study was designed to investigate digestive and heart associations, using esophageal transit scintigraphy in three different groups: patients exclusively with the dilated cardiac form of Chagas disease (DCCh), an indeterminate form of Chagas disease, and healthy controls. As a hypothesis, we assumed that autonomic chagasic denervation is a global process.

Materials And Methods: Twenty healthy controls and 75 outpatients with Chagas disease, divided into indeterminate form (n = 33) and (DCCh, n = 42), underwent esophageal scitigraphy.

Sympathetic Dysautonomia in Heart Failure by 123I-MIBG: comparison between Chagasic, non-Chagasic and heart transplant patients.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a severe public health problem because of its high morbidity and mortality and elevated costs, thus requiring better understanding of its course. In its complex and multifactorial pathogenesis, sympathetic hyperactivity plays a relevant role. Considering that sympathetic dysfunction is already present in the initial phases of chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCC) and frequently associated with a worse prognosis, we assumed it could be more severe in CCC than in cardiomyopathies of other etiologies (non-CCC).