TABLE III. Characteristics of the studies selected.

Reference	Location	Design	Cases included	Sample	Size of the amplicons (bp)
Piñero et al. (1999)	Cuzco/Peru	Case-control	Parasitological	Blood	72
Pirmez et al. (1999)	Rio de Janeiro/Brazil	Cross-sectional/cohort	Clinical	Biopsy	120
Victoir et al. (2003)	Lima/Peru	Cross-sectional/cohort	Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)	Biopsy	870
Disch et al. (2005)	Belo Horizonte/Brazil	Case-control	Clinical, immunological and parasitological	Biopsy	51,120
Camera et al. (2006)	Rio de Janeiro/Brazil	Case-control	Parasitological and PCR	Blood	120
Bracho et al. (2007)	Bogotá/Colombia	Case-control	Clinical, immunological and parasitological	Biopsy	120, 1,000
Deborggraev et al. (2008)	Lima/Peru	Case-control	Parasitological	Aspirate	115
Pereira et al. (2008)	Paraná/Brazil	Cross-sectional/cohort	Parasitological and PCR	Biopsy	70, 750, 103, 62
Fagundes et al. (2010)	Rio de Janeiro/Brazil	Cross-sectional/cohort	Parasitological	Biopsy	120
Boggild et al. (2011)	Lima/Peru	Case-control	Clinical, immunological, parasitological and PCR	Swab, nasal brush and biopsy	70
Thomaz-Soccol et al. (2011)	Paraná/Brazil	Cross-sectional/cohort	Clinical, parasitological and PCR	Biopsy	70, 750
Veland et al. (2011)	Lima/Peru	Case-control	Parasitological and PCR	Urine	70
Marco et al. (2012)	Salta/Argentina	Cross-sectional/cohort	Clinical, immunological and parasitological	Lesion scraping	168, 700, 103, 79, 79, 862
Neitzke-Abreu et al. (2013)	Maringá/Brazil	Cross-sectional/ cohort	Clinical, immunological and parasitological	Blood	70