Role of nucleic acid amplification assays in monitoring treatment response in chagas disease: Usefulness in clinical trials

Acta Tropica
Elena SulleiroAlejandro G Schijman

Abstract

Chagas disease has become a global health problem due to migration of infected people out of Latin America to non-endemic countries. For more than 40 years, only the nitroimidazole compounds Benznidazole and Nifurtimox, have been used for specific treatment of Trypanosoma cruzi infection with disappointing results, specially due to the long duration of treatment and adverse events in the chronic phase. In the last years, ergosterol inhibitors have been also proposed for specific treatment. Different randomized clinical trials were performed for evaluating their treatment efficacy and safety. One of the greatest concerns in clinical trials is to provide an early surrogate biomarker of response to trypanocidal chemotherapy. Serological response is slow and the classical parasitological tests have poor sensitivity and are time-consuming. Nowadays, PCR is the most helpful tool for assessing treatment response in a short period of time. Different protocols of PCR have been developed, being quantitative real time PCR based on amplification of repetitive satellite or minicircle DNA sequences plus an internal amplification standard, the mostly employed strategies in clinical trials. Standardized protocols and the use of an external qua...Continue Reading

Citations

May 28, 2020·Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology·Santiago J MartinezDavid M Engman
Oct 13, 2020·Expert Review of Anti-infective Therapy·Irene Losada GalvánMaría Jesús Pinazo
Nov 1, 2020·International Journal of Molecular Sciences·Catalina Avendaño, Manuel Alfonso Patarroyo
May 25, 2021·Parasitology·Nora Adriana Hernández-CuevasEric Dumonteil

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