Short Report: Polymerase Chain Reaction for Chronic Trypanosoma cruzi Infection Yields Higher Sensitivity in Blood Clot Than Buffy Coat or Whole Blood Specimens

Abstract. Trypanosoma cruzi polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is widely used, but sensitivity varies widely. We compared PCR using 121/122 primers targeting kinetoplast minicircle DNA in whole blood, buffy coat, and clot from Bolivian women. Sensitivity was significantly higher in clot (60.1%) than buffy coat (46.5%) or whole blood (40%). The use of clot could simplify specimen collection while improving sensitivity. Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, infects an estimated 8–10 million people in the Ameri-cas.1,2 After an initial acute phase, lasting 60–90 days and marked by readily detectable parasitemia, infected individu-als enter the chronic phase, which, in the absence of successful treatment, is life-long. In 20–30 % of those infected, cardio-myopathy or gastrointestinal disease develops years to de-cades later.3 The efficacy of drug treatment has been shown in randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials in chil-dren 6–12 years of age,4,5 and recent data suggest that try-panocidal treatment in adults with early cardiac lesions ma