Low-dose of benznidazole promotes therapeutic cure in experimental chronic Chagas' disease with absence of parasitism in blood, heart and colon.

Low-dose of benznidazole promotes therapeutic cure in experimental chronic Chagas' disease with absence of parasitism in blood, heart and colon. Exp Parasitol. 2020 Jan 21;:107834 Authors: Perin L, Fonseca KDS, de Carvalho TV, Carvalho LM, Madeira JV, Medeiros LDF, Molina I, Correa-Oliveira R, Carneiro CM, Vieira PMA Abstract Studies suggest that the dose of the standard benznidazole (BNZ) treatment regimen might be too high. We investigated the efficacy of BNZ 20 and 40 mg/kg/day compared with standard dose (100 mg/kg/day) to induce cure in mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi Y strain in the acute and chronic phases of Chagas' disease. Our findings indicate that an experimental treatment with a low BNZ dose (40 mg/kg/day) is similarly effective as the usual dose in the chronic mice model (100% of cure). In addition, the treatment in the chronic model of Chagas' disease presented better results than the acute model and colon appears to be a key tissue when it comes to evaluating treatment efficacy compared to blood and heart. Therefore, our data suggest the reconsideration of the current therapy, mainly in the chronic phase of the disease. PMID: 31978394 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Experimental Parasitology - Category: Parasitology Authors: Tags: Exp Parasitol Source Type: research