The need for culture in tegumentary leishmaniasis diagnosis in Bolivia: A comparative evaluation of four parasitological techniques using two sampling methods.

Leishmaniases are zoonotic diseases caused by protozoa of the genus Leishmania. In Bolivia, leishmaniasis occurs mainly in the cutaneous form (CL) followed by the mucosal or mucocutaneous form (ML or MCL), grouped as tegumentary leishmaniosis (TL), while cases of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) are rare. The cases of TL are routinely diagnosed by parasitological methods: Direct Parasitological Exam (DPE) and axenic culture, the latter being performed only by specialized laboratories.

Usefulness of Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry in the Characterization of Strains Causing Tegumentary Leishmaniasis in Bolivia versus Gene Sequencing.

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is a proteomic technique with proven efficiency in the identification of microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and parasites. The present study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of MALDI-TOF MS for the characterization of species circulating in Bolivia using gene sequencing as a reference technique. 55 strains that were isolated from patients with tegumentary leishmaniasis were analyzed.

Evaluation of Microscopic Observation Drug Susceptibility (MODS) and the string test for rapid diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in HIV/AIDS patients in Bolivia.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is the most common opportunistic infection and the leading cause of death in HIV-positive people worldwide. Diagnosing TB is difficult, and is more challenging in resource-scarce settings where culture-based diagnostic methods rely on poorly sensitive smear microscopy by Ziehl-Neelsen stain (ZN).

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study examining the diagnostic utility of Microscopic Observation Drug Susceptibility liquid culture (MODS) versus traditional Ziehl-Neelsen staining (ZN) and Lowenstein Jensen culture (LJ) of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) in HIV-infected patients in Bolivia.

Gut hormones, appetite suppression and cachexia in patients with pulmonary TB.

Background: Cachexia is a hallmark of pulmonary tuberculosis and is associated with poor prognosis. A better understanding of the mechanisms behind such weight loss could reveal targets for therapeutic intervention. The role of appetite-regulatory hormones in tuberculosis is unknown.

Highly effective serodiagnosis for Chagas' disease.

Many proteins of Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas' disease, contain characteristic arrays of highly repetitive immunogenic amino acid motifs. Diagnostic tests using these motifs in monomeric or dimeric form have proven to provide markedly improved specificity compared to conventional tests based on crude parasite extracts. However, in many cases the available tests still suffer from limited sensitivity.

Co-Infection of Leishmania (Viannia) braziliensis and HIV: report of a case of mucosal leishmaniasis in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

We describe the first case of Leishmania/HIV co-infection reported in Bolivia. Initially hospitalized with a diagnosis of pneumonia and bronchitis, the patient had numerous cutaneous and mucosal lesions caused by Leishmania (Viannia) braziliensis. The patient was also diagnosed as severely immunocompromised because of HIV infection.

Amniotic fluid is not useful for diagnosis of congenital Trypanosoma cruzi infection.

Although Trypanosoma cruzi can be transmitted transplacentally and induce congenital infection, no data are available about the presence of this parasite in human amniotic fluid. We examined 8, 19, and 4 amniotic fluid samples (collected at delivery or by aspiration of gastric content of neonates) from control uninfected mothers (M-B-), infected mothers delivering uninfected newborns (M+B-), and mothers of confirmed congenital cases (M+B+), respectively. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), using nuclear and kinetoplastic DNA primers (Tcz1-Tcz2 and 121-122), were negative for all control M-B- samples, but positive for 5 of 19 M+B- and 2 of 4 M+B+ samples.

Congenital Chagas disease in Bolivia is not associated with DNA polymorphism of Trypanosoma cruzi.

This study aims to typify the Trypanosoma cruzi (sub)lineage(s) in umbilical cord blood of congenitally infected Bolivian newborns, using PCR amplifications of "Region Markers", mini-exon or kDNA fragments followed by hybridization or sequencing. New probes were also designed to distinguish three variants within the TcIId sublineage. The IIb, IId, or IIe T.

Trypanosoma cruzi (Kinetoplastida Trypanosomatidae): ecology of the transmission cycle in the wild environment of the Andean valley of Cochabamba, Bolivia.

An active Trypanosoma cruzi transmission cycle maintained by wild rodents in the Andean valleys of Cochabamba Bolivia is described. Wild and domestic Triatoma infestans with 60% infection with T. cruzi were found and was evidenced in 47.

[Detection of molecular heterogeneity of Trypanosoma cruzi].

Congenital transmission of T. cruzi in Cochabamba affects 6% of newborns from infected mothers. Only limited information is available on the type of transmitted parasites.

[Effects of maternal infection with Trypanosoma cruzi in pregnancy development and in the newborn infant].

In the endemic regions of Bolivia the infection of the feminine population in fertile age by T. cruzi is frequent (20 to 50 % of the women in fertile age) and the rate of fetal maternal transmission is of approximately 5%. A great percentage of infected women do not transmit the infection to the fetus.

[Comparison of PCR methods for the diagnosis of congenital Trypanosoma cruzi infection].

PCR is a potentially interesting diagnostic tool to detect congenital T. cruzi infection. We have compared the sensitivity and capacity of a battery of T.

[Estimation of the parasitemia in Trypanosoma cruzi human infection: high parasitemias are associated with severe and fatal congenital Chagas disease].

The aim of this study was to validate the method of microhematocrit tube, as a rapid method to estimate the parasitemia in blood and to associate the parasites concentration with the morbidity and mortality of new born children with congenital Chagas diseases. Our results were determined experimentally and shown that the detection limit of the microhematocrit tube method is 40 parasites/ml when at least one of the four observed tubes is positive. Besides, it was also established that when the four examined tubes are positive the parasitemia in blood reaches more than 100 parasites/ml.

Comparison of polymerase chain reaction methods for reliable and easy detection of congenital Trypanosoma cruzi infection.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a potentially interesting diagnostic tool for detecting congenital Trypanosoma cruzi infection at birth. We have compared the sensitivity and capacity of a group of T. cruzi PCR primers in detecting the complete spectrum of known T.