[Radiological study on megacolon cases in an endemic area for Chagas disease].

INTRODUCTION

A radiological study on the colon of patients from an endemic Chagas disease zone was conducted using the simplified opaque enema technique of Ximenes et al.

METHODS

The study involved 291 individuals with a mean age of 48.8 ± 12.5 years-old, of whom 222 were seropositive for Chagas disease. Anteroposterior, posteroanterior and left lateral view radiographs were analyzed by visual inspection and measurement of the largest rectal and sigmoid diameters.

RESULTS

From the visual inspection, megacolon was diagnosed in 14 (6.3%) Chagas disease patients. The mean diameter of the rectal ampulla among the Chagas patients was 6.3 ± 1.0 cm, similar to the measurement in non-Chagas individuals: 6.2 ± 1.0 cm (p= 0.391). The mean sigmoid loop diameter in the Chagas patients was 5 ± 1.6 cm, which was larger than among the non-Chagas individuals: 4.4 ± 0.8 cm (p= 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

excluding the evident and probable megacolon cases, the Chagas disease population continued to present a significantly larger mean sigmoid diameter than that observed among non-Chagas individuals (p= 0.003).