Serum uric acid levels in Chagas' disease.

Uricemia was studied in a sample of 192 individuals from a highly endemic site for Chagas' disease (Bambuí, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil). The sample had 50 serologically negative individuals (controls) and the positive ones were classified on the basis of the presence of electrocardiographic alterations (63), altered esophageal emptying (16), or without any sign on symptom of the disease (76). Only the individuals with the digestive form of chronic Chagas' disease showed hyperuricemia, when compared with the appropriate controls. Family data suggest that hyperuricemia is an effect of the digestive pathology, rather than a cause, since the non-infected sibs of the megaesophagous patients did not show elevated levels of serum uric acid. Possible mechanisms responsible for these findings are postulated.