by Alonso-Padilla J, López MC, Esteva M, Zrein M, Casellas A, Gómez I, Granjon E, Méndez S, Benitez C, Ruiz AM, Sanz S, Gascón J, Thomas MC, Pinazo M-J, Abril M, Alarcón de Noya B, Jorge TA, Chatelain E, Grijalva MJ, Guhl F, Hasslocher-Moreno AM, Luquetti AO, Noya O, Ramsey JM, Ribeiro I, Longhi SA, Schijman AG, Sosa-Estani S, Torrico F, Viotti R. Acta Tropica 2021; doi: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2021.105990
Summary: During the chronic phase of Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, parasitemia is low and intermittent, while a high level of anti-T. Cruzi antibodies persist for years in patients who have been successfully treated, making it difficult to follow-up patients. The lack of biomarkers for timely assessment of therapeutic response discourages greater use of the two available anti-parasitic drugs and complicates evaluation of new drugs in clinical trials. The authors describe a blinded case control study in which they tested the serological reactivity over time of a group of parasite-derived antigens to see if they might be useful biomarkers of treatment response for chronically infected patients. Some of the antigens exhibited promising results.
