New Scheme of Intermittent Benznidazole
CLINICAL THERAPEUTICS crossm New Scheme of Intermittent Benznidazole Administration in Patients Chronically Infected with Trypanosoma cruzi: Clinical, Parasitological, and Serological Assessment after Three Years of Follow-Up Downloaded from María Gabriela Álvarez,a Juan Carlos Ramírez,b Graciela Bertocchi,a Marisa Fernández,c Yolanda Hernández,c Bruno Lococo,a Constanza Lopez-Albizu,c Alejandro Schijman,b Carolina Cura,c Marcelo Abril,d Susana Laucella,a,c Rick L. Tarleton,e María Ailen Natale,c Melisa Castro Eiro,c Sergio Sosa-Estani,c,f Rodolfo Viottia aHospital Interzonal General de Agudos “Eva Perón,” San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina bInstituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular “Dr. Héctor N. Torres” (INGEBI-CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina cInstituto Nacional de Parasitología “Dr. Mario Fatala Chaben,” Buenos Aires, Argentina dFundación Mundo Sano, Buenos Aires, Argentina http://aac.asm.org/ eCenter for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States fInstituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria, CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina ABSTRACT In a pilot study, we showed that the intermittent administration of ben- znidazole in chronic Chagas disease patients resulted in a low rate of treatment sus- pension and therapeutic failure, as assessed by quantitative PCR (qPCR) at the end of treatment. Here, a 3-year posttreatment follow-up study of the same cohort of patients is presented. The treatment scheme consisted of 12 doses of benznidazole on August 31, 2020 by guest at 5 mg/kg of body weight/day in two daily doses every 5 days. Parasite load, Trypanosoma cruzi-specific antibodies, and serum chemokine levels were measured prior to treatment and after a median follow-up of 36 months posttreatment by DNA minicircle kinetoplastid and nuclear DNA satellite sequence qPCR methods, conventional serological techniques, a Luminex-based assay with recombinant T.
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