Shorter treatment in chronic Chagas disease: a new promise?

Chronic Chagas disease is caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi and affects around 6 million people in Latin America. Additionally, it is imperative to introduce new investigations that evaluate the efficacy of this promising short benznidazole regimen regarding clinical disease progression in patients with chronic Chagas disease in the indeterminate stage with PCR detected by DNA replicates, which enhances the probability of detecting circulating parasite.10 This selection criterion would lead to inclusion of patients with active T cruzi infection who would have a higher probability of parasite clearance with drugs with low rates of adverse events in comparison with conventional benznidazole treatment. [...]benznidazole-induced nervous system symptoms, including peripheral neuropathy, was observed in 52 (4%) of 1429 patients in a previous trial.4 It would be a colossal task, with the inclusion of thousands of people and great expenditure, but patients with chronic Chagas disease, victims of social inequalities, certainly deserve that.