Cell mediated immune response in patients with Chagas. Correlation with the presence of Chagasic cardiomyopathy.

We are reporting data from a series of studies undertaken to evaluate if there was any correlation between the cell mediated immune response and the presence of Chagasic cardiomyopathy. Infected patients without evidence of heart pathology (INF), infected patients with Chagasic cardiomyopathy (CDM) and healthy controls, were studied. We evaluated: a) the correlation of the immune response with the presence of parasitemia; b) the suppression induced by Trypanosoma cruzi antigens using a costimulation assay; c) their production of IL2 when stimulated with antigens and mitogen; and d) the response of variable proportion of T cells subpopulations to parasite antigens. The immune response of INF was lower when parasitemia could be demonstrated. The negative regulation of the cell mediated immune response was higher in INF. The production of IL2 was lower in patients than in controls. CDM patients showed a tendency to produce less IL2 than INF. The outline of the response of variable proportions of subsets of T cells had a high concordance in CDM and no concordance in INF. These results show that there are differences in the cell mediated immune response of INF and CDM. The high concordance of the response of variable proportions of T cells, from CDM, suggests that this test could have a prognostic value.