Heart failure in chronic chagasic cardiomyopathy

According to the last epidemiological report of the World Health Organization in 2015, in Argentina there are 1.5 million people infected with Trypanosoma cruzi and around 370,000 patients with different manifestations of Chagas disease. The objective of this review is to analyze one of the most serious and invalidating clinical manifestations of this disease: chronic chagasic myocardiopathy. This pathology, which has a disparate geographical distribution in Argentina, shares several common characteristics with other etiological forms of heart failure, although its epidemiology, clinical presentation and response to medical, electrical and surgical treatment give it a particular distinction and in many cases, little known. For this reason, there is a growing interest in the medical community to achieve greater knowledge of this disease in order to implement management and therapeutic decisions, which although they have shown benefit in other populations of patients with heart failure, have not yet been adequately endorsed. for its application in chagasic heart failure. Many of the indications and interventions are based on experience rather than scientific evidence. That is why this review is a timely challenge to optimize the treatment and prognosis of this population.