Long-term cardiology outcomes in children after early treatment for Chagas disease, an observational study.

BACKGROUND: Parasite persistence after acute infection with Trypanosoma cruzi is an important factor in the development of Chagas disease (CD) cardiomyopathy. Few studies have investigated the clinical effectiveness of CD treatment through the evaluation of cardiological events by long term follow-up of treated children. Cardiological evaluation in children is challenging since features that would be diagnosed as abnormal in an adult's ECG may be normal, age-related findings in a pediatric ECG trace. The objective was to evaluate cardiac involvement in patients with Chagas disease with a minimum follow-up of 6 years post-treatment. METHODOLOGY: A descriptive study of a cohort of pediatric patients with CD treated with benznidazole (Bz) or nifurtimox (Nf) was conducted. Children (N = 234) with at least 6 years post CD treatment followed at the Parasitology and Chagas Service, Buenos Aires Children's Hospital (Argentina) were enrolled. By convenience sampling, children who attended a clinical visit between August 2015 and November 2019 were also invited to participate for additional cardiovascular studies like 24-hour Holter monitoring and speckle-tracking 2D echocardiogram (STE). Benznidazole was prescribed in 171 patients and nifurtimox in 63 patients. Baseline parasitemia data was available for 168/234 patients. During the follow-up period, alterations in routine ECG were observed in 11/234 (4.7%, 95% CI [2-7.4%]) patients. In only four patients, with complete right bundle branch block (cRBBB) and left anterior fascicular block (LAFB), ECG alterations were considered probably related to CD. During follow-up, 129/130 (99%) treated patients achieved persistent negative parasitemia by qPCR. Also decrease in T.cruzi antibodies titers was observed in all patients and negative seroconversion occurred in 123/234 (52%) patients. CONCLUSIONS: A low incidence of cardiological lesions related to CD was observed in patients treated early for pediatric CD. This suggests a protective effect of parasiticidal treatment on the development of cardiological lesions and highlights the importance of early treatment of infected children. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04090489.

Evaluation of the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score to predict type 2 diabetes mellitus in a Colombian population: A longitudinal observational study.

AIM: To assess the performance of the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC) questionnaire for detecting and predicting type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) in a Colombian population. METHODS: This is a longitudinal observational study conducted in Floridablanca, Colombia. Adult subjects (age ≥ 35 years) without known diabetes, were included. A modified version of FINDRISC was completed, and the glycemia values from all the subjects were collected from the hospital's database. Firstly, a cross-sectional analysis was performed and then, the subsample of prediabetic participants was followed for diabetes incidence. RESULTS: A total of 772 subjects were suitable for the study. The overall prevalence of undiagnosed DM2 was 2.59%, and the incidence of DM2 among the prediabetic participants was 7.5 per 100 person-years after a total of 265257 person-years follow-up. The FINDRISC at baseline was significantly associated with undiagnosed and incident DM2. The area under receiver operating characteristics curve of the FINDRISC score for detecting undiagnosed DM2 in both men and women was 0.7477 and 0.7175, respectively; and for predicting the incidence of DM2 among prediabetics was 71.99% in men and 67.74% in women. CONCLUSION: The FINDRISC questionnaire is a useful screening tool to identify cross-sectionally unknown DM2 and to predict the incidence of DM2 among prediabetics in the Colombian population.

Higher household income and the availability of electronic devices and transport at home are associated with higher waist circumference in Colombian children: the ACFIES study.

BACKGROUND: The current "epidemic" of childhood obesity is described as being driven by modern lifestyles with associated socioeconomic and environmental changes that modify dietary habits, discourage physical activity and encourage sedentary behaviors. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between household income and the availability of electronic devices and transport at home, and the values of waist circumference (WC), as an indicator of abdominal obesity, in children and adolescents from Bucaramanga, Colombia. METHODS: Cross-sectional study of public elementary and high school population, of low-middle socioeconomic status. RESULTS: A total of 668 schoolchildren were recruited. After adjusting for potential confounders, significant positive associations between waist circumference and higher household income (p = 0.011), and waist circumference and the availability of electronic devices and transport at home (p = 0.026) were found. CONCLUSIONS: In low-middle socioeconomic status schoolchildren in a developing country, those from relatively more affluent families had greater waist circumference, an association that is opposite to that observed in developed countries. This finding could be related to higher income family's ability to purchase electronic devices and motorized transport which discourage physical activity and for their children to buy desirable and more costly western fast food.

EFECTO DE DENSIDAD POBLACIONAL DE HUEVOS SOBRE VIABILIDAD Y TIEMPO DE DESARROLLO DE Drosophila melanogaster (DROSOPHILIDAE) / Effect Of Eggs Population Density On Viability And Time Of Development Of Drosophila melanogaster (Drosophilidae)

Para estimar el efecto de la densidad poblacional de huevos sobre la viabilidad huevoadulto de Drosophila melanogaster se realizaron tres tratamientos en frascos con medio de cultivo agar-banano: a densidad de 10, 50 y 90 huevos. La variable de respuesta fue la proporción de individuos adultos emergidos desde la aparición del primer imago hasta 15 días después de la siembra. Las viabilidades huevo-adulto promedio fueron 0,320, 0,338 y 0,328 para las densidades de 10, 50 y 90 huevos respectivamente. No se evidenciaron diferencias significativas entre los tres tratamientos (p>0.05). Por lo tanto, no se detectó en este estudio influencia de la densidad poblacional de huevos sobre la viabilidad huevo-adulto. Probablemente debido a que la proporción entre el número de huevos y la cantidad de medio fue suficientemente alta para no generar competencia en otros estadios del desarrollo huevo/adulto.

For estimating the effect from population density of eggs over viability egg-adult in Drosophila melanogaster, it was made three treatments in flasks with agar-banana culture media: densities of 10, 50 and 90 eggs. The effect evaluated was the adult’s proportion that emerged after 15 days of planting. The mean proportions of viability egg-adult were 0.32, 0.338 and 0.328 for the density of 10, 50 and 90 eggs respectively. Significant differences in viability were not evident (p>0.05). Consequently, it was not found effects from the eggs densities in the present study over egg-adult viability. These results probably were due to that the relation among number of eggs and quantity of culture media was not enough of a high for generate competition at another stadiums through the egg-adult development.