Longitudinal Study of Patients With Chronic Chagas Cardiomyopathy in Brazil (SaMi_Trop Project)

BACKGROUND: Chagas Disease (ChD) remains as one of the most neglected diseases in the world, with 8-10 million infected people and only one marginally effective therapeutic. The lack of good biomarkers for active infection or clinical end-points poses a problem for assessing the performance of new drugs or therapeutic interventions. Among the biomarkers, several studies showed that Brain Natriuretic Peptide (NT-ProBNP) is accurate maker of left ventricular systolic and diastolic dysfunction. OBJECTIVE: Our long term goal is to establish The Sao Paulo-Minas Gerais Tropical Medicine Research Center (SaMi-Trop) as a Center of Excellence for Neglected Infectious Disease Research in Brazil. The Specific Aims are to begin that process by focusing on Trypanosoma cruzi infection with the goal of finding an array of biomarkers that correlate with parasite persistence and Chagas cardiac disease status that can be used to infer risk of disease progression and death as well used as markers of cure (parasite eradication) or clinical efficacy (stabilize or reverse cardiac damage) of novel drugs METHOD: The investigators established a prospective cohort of 1,959 patients with chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCC). The study is being conducted in 21 cities of the northern part of Minas Gerais state in Brazil, and includes a follow up of at least two years (baseline and 24 months) . The evaluation included collection of socio-demographic information, social determinants of health, health-related behaviours, comorbidities, medicines in use, history of previous treatment for Chagas Disease (ChD), symptoms, functional class, quality of life, blood sample collection and ECG.