Article
Cellular therapy in Chagas' disease: potential applications in patients with chronic cardiomyopathy.
Registro en:
SOARES, M. B. P. et al. Cellular therapy in Chagas' disease: potential applications in patients with chronic cardiomyopathy. Regenerative Medicine, v. 2, n. 3, p. 257-264, 2007.
1746-076X
10.2217/17460751.2.3.257
Autor
Soares, Milena Botelho Pereira
Macambira, Simone Garcia
Carvalho, Antonio Carlos Campos de
Santos, Ricardo Ribeiro dos
Resumen
Nearly a century after its discovery, Chagas' disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, remains a major health problem in Latin America. Although efforts in transmission control have contributed to a decrease in the number of new cases, approximately a third of chronic Chagasic individuals have or will develop the symptomatic forms of the disease, mainly cardiomyopathy. Chagas' disease is a progressively debilitating disease, which, at the final stages, there are no currently available treatments other than heart transplantation. In this scenario, cellular therapy is being tested as an alternative for millions of patients with heart dysfunction due to Chagas' disease. In this article, we review the studies of cellular therapy in animal models and in patients with Chagasic cardiomyopathy and the possible mechanisms by which cellular therapy may act in this disease.