Quantitative PCR as a marker for preemptive therapy and its role in therapeutic control in Trypanosoma cruzi/HIV coinfection

Background: Trypanosoma cruzi and HIV coinfection can evolve with depression of cellular immunity and increased parasitemia. We applied quantitative PCR (qPCR) as a marker for preemptive antiparasitic treatment to avoid fatal Chagas disease reactivation and analyzed the outcome of treated cases.
Methodology: This mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal study included 171 Chagas disease patients, 60 coinfected with HIV. Of these 60 patients, ten showed Chagas disease reactivation, confirmed by parasites identified in the blood, cerebrospinal fluid, or tissues, 12 exhibited high parasitemia but no reactivation, and 38 had low parasitemia and no reactivation.
Results:  We showed, for the first time, the success of the timely introduction of benznidazole in the non-reactivated group with high levels of parasitemia detected by qPCR and the absence of parasites in reactivated cases with at least 58 days of benznidazole. HIV+ and HIV+ without reactivation had a 4.0 – 5.1 higher chance of h..., The mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal study included 171 patients with T. cruzi infection: 60 HIV-coinfected (HIV+) and 111 HIV seronegative, as comparator groups. Most of them recruited from the Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Division of the Hospital das Clínicas, a tertiary hospital adjacent to the School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. All sociodemographic, clinical, and laboratory data, date of treatment and sample collections (before treatment and during follow-up), results of parasitemia (parasitological and molecular methods), CD4 counts, HIV viral loads, antiretroviral therapy and schemes, the evolution of Chagas disease, all-cause mortality and deaths due to Chagas disease, were collected by accessing the Medical records., , # Data from: Quantitative PCR as a marker for preemptive therapy and its role in therapeutic control in Trypanosoma cruzi//HIV coinfection.

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.05qfttf8f](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.05qfttf8f)

A positive correlation was found between parasites and viral loads. Remarkably, treated *T.  cruzi/*HIV-coinfected patients had 77.3% conversion from positive to negative parasitemia compared to 19.1% of untreated patients. In addition, untreated patients showed ~13.6 times higher odds of having positive parasitemia in the follow-up period compared with treated patients. There were no statistically significant differences between treated and untreated patients regarding the evolution of Chagas disease. The main factors associated with all-cause deaths were higher parasitemia, lower CD4 counts/µL, higher viral load, and absence of antiretroviral therapy.

## Description of the data and file structure

The study included 171 patients with *T. cruzi *infection: 60 HIV-..., I confirm that I have received explicit consent from participants to publish the data. The consent form explicitly guarantees confidentiality. Below is the English version of the consent form that was used.

ANEXO I
HOSPITAL DAS CLÍNICAS DA FACULDADE DE MEDICINA DA UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO-HCFMUSP
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