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Ischaemic stroke in chagasic patients

¹ Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
A L Teixeira Jr
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Departamento de Morfologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627, Pampulha, Belo Horizonte MC 31270-901, Brazil; altexjr@hotmail.com

Keywords: Chagas; disease; stroke

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We read with interest the paper by Carod-Artal et al¹ that showed the relevance of Chagas’ disease as a stroke risk factor in patients of South American origin. They also confirmed a textbook view² (not hitherto demonstrated) that cardioembolism is the main cause of stroke in Chagas’ disease, in 52% of cases. This reflects in part the underlying chagasic cardiomyopathy, characterised by congestive heart failure and arrhythmias, present in 46% of chagasic patients as compared with 25% of non-chagasic patients.

Despite the lack of comparison of stroke characteristics between both groups, one very interesting finding was the significant percentage of chagasic patients who developed stroke without any known vascular risk factors or cardiopathy. As the authors stated, undetected cardiovascular disease could account for at least part of this finding. The indeterminate form of the disease is defined by the presence of infection confirmed by serological tests, in the absence of . . . [Full text of this article]

F J Carod-Artal², A P Vargas², M Melo², T A Horan²

² Neurology Department, Sarah Hospital, Brasilia, Brazil

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr F J Carod-Artal
Neurology Department, Sarah Hospital, SMHS quadra 501 conjunto A, CEP 7330-150, Brasilia DF, Brazil; javier@bsb.sarah.br/FJCarod@aol.com