Beneficial effects of gangliosides on the natural history of acute chagasic myocarditis in rats

This study was designed to investigate the effects of ganglioside treatment on acutely Trypanosoma cruzi-infected rats with emphasis on the heart. Newly weaned Wistar rats were infected with T. cruzi (Colombian strain, 50,000 parasites/kg body weight injected intraperitoneally). Two groups of 25 infected rats received daily injections of saline or ganglioside (10 mg/kg body weight) intraperitoneally between the 14th and 30th days after infection. Two groups of 10 noninfected rats were similarly treated. On day 31, all surviving rats were killed. Hearts were collected for histopathology and norepinephrine assay. An arbitrary score for myocardial microscopic lesions was used to characterize each heart wall. Mortality was recorded throughout the experimental period. Seven of 25 (28%) ganglioside-treated and 14 of 25 (56%) saline-treated rats died spontaneously (p = 0.02). The histological score was 5.4 ± 3.2 for ganglioside-treated and 7.9 ± 3.0 for saline-treated rats (p < 0.05). No difference was detected in myocardial norepinephrine content. Thus, ganglioside treatment decreases mortality and myocardial inflammation in acute chagasic myocarditis in rats.