Elucidating the impact of low doses of nano-formulated benznidazole in acute experimental Chagas disease

RIAL, MARCELA S.; SCALISE, MARÍA L.; ARRÚA, EVA C.; ESTEVA, MÓNICA I.; SALOMON, CLAUDIO J.; FICHERA, LAURA E.

PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

Año: 2017 vol. 11

1935-2735

Chagas disease is a neglected parasitic infection caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) that affects more than 6 million people, mainly in Latin America. Benznidazole is still the drug of choice in many countries to treat it in spite of its dosage regimen and adverse side effects such as such as allergic dermatitis, peripheral neuropathy and anorexia. In this study, the efficacy of low doses of benznidazole, formulated as nanoparticles, against T. cruzi acute infections in immunosuppressed and non-immunosuppressed mice was investigated in order to establish future treatment strategies. In-vivo experiments showed that all infected mice treated with low doses of nanoformulated benznidazole survived until the end of the assay (92 dpi), while only 15% of infected untreated mice survived to the end of the same period of time. Moreover, such novel formulation was able to decrease the parasite burden and, consequently, heart inflammation and lesions were significantly reduced. Clearly, low doses of benznidazole exhibited, at least, the same efficacy in infected mice as the usual dose, confirming the usefulness of nanoformulated benznidazole for an improved treatment of Chagas disease.