Cardiac inflammation and ventricular tachycardia in Chagas disease

Abstract

Chagas disease (CD) is an infection that can affect many different organ systems; in the heart, CD is known to cause cardiac fibrosis, conduction abnormalities, cardiomyopathy (CM), ventricular tachycardia (VT), and sudden cardiac death (SCD). Active inflammation is known to occur in acute infection1; however, what role inflammation plays in chronic disease once CM has developed is not well understood. What is known is that CD patients with CM are at risk for monomorphic VT and have a higher mortality compared with other patients with nonischemic CM of other etiologies.