Serum cytokines and tissue doppler imaging as markers of prognosis of chronic myocarditis due to chagas disease

INTRODUCTION: Insidious myocarditis due to Chagas disease evolves with low inflammatory potential. Determining biomarkers can help find individuals at risk for Heart Failure (HF) or arrhythmias. This study aimed to evaluate the role of serum cytokines and myocardial tissue Doppler imaging as prognostic markers of Chagas myocarditis. METHODS: This longitudinal study was carried out in a prospective cohort in which adults living with Chagas disease who had no HF were followed up for 10-years. Tissue Doppler imaging was performed, and inflammatory cytokines were measured. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, unadjusted and adjusted survival analyses for some variables by Cox regression and multivariate binary logistic regression analysis were performed for the primary and total outcomes. RESULTS: This study found that IL1-B and IL-13 were associated with primary and total events (p = 0.015 and p = 0.013 and p = 0.013 and 0.042, respectively). In the adjusted analysis, IL1-B and IL-13 remained associated with primary events, with p = 0.027 and p = 0.030, respectively, and IL1-B with total events (p = 0.022). In the logistic regression analysis, IL-5 independently predicted total events (p = 0.023). We found a significant association between tissue Doppler imaging variables and primary outcomes. CONCLUSION: Identifying IL-5, IL1-B and IL-13 as probable independent predictors of events at an early stage of Chagas disease is a significant milestone to the understanding of this pathology evolution. Also, several tissue Doppler parameters were important as prognosis predictors.