The following are the major diseases or complications that may be contributed by Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis):
Cardiovascular system (I00-I99)
- Heart failure (cardiac insufficiency).
- Cardiac ischemia – deficiency supply of the heart.
- Cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease): Chagas cardiomyopathy – develops in approximately one-third of all patients with chronic Chagas disease (approximately 5-15 years after acute infection); in addition to dilated cardiomyopathy (enlargement of the heart), various cardiac arrhythmias, aneurysms (“bulges”) of the ventricle, and thromboembolic complications may occur.
- Stimulus formation / conduction disorders of the heart.
- Thromboembolism – occlusion of a pulmonary vessel by a blood clot.
- Sudden cardiac death (PHT)
Mouth, esophagus (food pipe), stomach, and intestines (K00-K67; K90-K93).
- Intestinal perforation – rupture of the intestine, unspecified.
- Megaesophagus – enlargement of the esophagus.
- Megaduodenum – enlargement of the duodenum.
- Megacolon – enlargement of the large intestine; leads to chronic constipation (constipation).
- Peritonitis (inflammation of the peritoneum).
- Toxic megacolon – toxin-induced paralysis and massive dilatation of the colon (widening of the large intestine; > 6 cm), which is accompanied by acute abdomen (most severe abdominal pain), vomiting, clinical signs of shock and sepsis (blood poisoning); lethality (mortality based on the total number of people suffering from the disease) is about 30%.
- Volvulus – rotation of a section of the digestive tract around its mesenteric axis; symptoms: abdominal swelling that develops over two or three days; typical complications are mechanical ileus (intestinal obstruction) or intestinal gangrene (death of a section of the intestine due to insufficient oxygen supply)
Neoplasms – tumor diseases (C00-D48).
- Esophageal carcinoma (cancer of the esophagus).
Psyche – nervous system (F00-F99; G00-G99).
- Involvement of the brain, similar to cerebral toxoplasmosis.
The lethality (mortality relative to the total number of people with the disease) is up to ten percent.
