• Spinello Antinori, Anna L Ridolfo, Andrea Giacomelli, Cecilia Bonazzetti, Mario Corbellino, and Massimo Galli.
• Luigi Sacco Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy - spinello.antinori@unimi.it.
• Panminerva Med. 2019 Dec 1; 61 (4): 464-472.

AbstractChagas disease (CD) is an emerging infection in Italy as the consequence of the huge immigration from Latin American countries observed during the last ten-fifteen years. However, the interest of Italian researchers on CD dates back to the '80-90s of the last century with studies conducted in collaboration with Brazilian and Argentinian colleagues by Italian cardiologists and pathologists. Moreover, the first demonstration of the existence in the pre-Columbian America of Chagas disease in a Peruvian mummy was made by a group of Italian paleopathologists. Seroprevalence studies performed between 2010-2014 in Negrar (Verona), Bergamo, Milan, Florence and Rome shows Trypanosoma cruzi infection ranging from 3.9% to 17.1% with people coming from Bolivia as the most affected. As observed in Latin America about 30% of screened subjects in Italy are affected by cardiac or digestive forms of CD. More than 20% of subjects treated with benznidazole discontinued it permanently due to adverse events.

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