In Pursuit of Drugs for American Trypanosomiasis: Evaluation of Some “Standards” in a Mouse Model 1

Abstract

Forty-nine “standard” compounds known to be useful in the treatment of other diseases were tested for their suppressive activity against the trypomastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi-infected mice. The most active was the antidepressant protriptyline, which was almost three times as effective as the reference drug, nifurtimox. A major value of the present data is to demonstrate the refractoriness of the T_: cruzi parasite against many of the drug standards that have known biological activity.