[Cardiac complications of American trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease). Various case reports and general observations].

Three young female patients with heart problems and positive serologic tests or characteristic histologic lesions for Chagas' disease (American trypanosomiasis) are reported, one of them having presented with acute anterior myocardial infarction with only minor coronary lesions. The most prominent features of the disease are discussed with emphasis on late cardiac complications. Chagas' cardiomyopathy is the leading cause of sudden death in Latin America, where an estimated 10 to 12 million people are infected in endemic areas from southern Mexico to southern Argentina. It has also been termed "emboligenic cardiomyopathy" since arterial embolism is a very frequent complication. Embolic obstruction of a coronary artery may therefore well be the most probable cause of myocardial infarction in young people with Chagas' disease, although other mechanisms cannot be excluded.