TABLE 3.

Combination therapy of PTX plus Bz shows sustained beneficial effects on parasite control and electrical abnormalities in chronically T. cruzi-infected mice after treatment cessation

Parameter	Mean value for group ± SEa
	NI	Pretherapy (120 dpi)	Posttherapy (180–200 dpi)
			Veh	PTX	Bz	Bz+PTX
Parasitemia level (104 parasites/ml)	0	53 ± 10	56 ± 45	23 ± 8.5 #	9.9 ± 9.9 ##	5.7 ± 3 ###
% of mice with arrhythmia	0	100 ± 0 ***	100 ± 0 ***	100 ± 0 ***	100 ± 0 ***	48 ± 3 #,§,‡,†
No. of flutter events/2 min	0	0	41.3 ± 2.6 ***,†††	29.5 ± 0.5 #,†††	0 ###,§§§	0 ###,§§§
% of mice with AVB2	0	86 ± 6 ***	78 ± 7 ***	82 ± 2	58 ± 1.5 §,†	41 ± 2 #,§,‡,††
No. of AVB2 events/2 min	0	212 ± 11 ***	292 ± 18 ***,††	47 ± 1.5 ###,†††	50 ± 2.8 ###,†††	51 ± 1.2 ###,†††
QRS (ms)	11 ± 0.14	13 ± 0.48 *	13.4 ± 0.3 ***	11.8 ± 0.2 ##	11.9 ± 0.4 #	10.9 ± 0.3 ###,††
QTc (ms)	77 ± 2.5	89.9 ± 2.4 **	94.2 ± 2.7 ***	88.3 ± 3.4	86.9 ± 3.9	83.2 ± 3.4#

^a*, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001 (for comparison of vehicle-treated T. cruzi-infected mice with NI mice). #, P < 0.05; ##, P < 0.01; ###, P < 0.001 (for comparison of T. cruzi-infected mice administered PTX, Bz, or Bz-plus-PTX treatment with Veh-injected infected mice). §, P < 0.05 (for comparison of T. cruzi-infected mice administered Bz-plus-PTX treatment with infected mice treated with PTX). ‡, P < 0.05 (for comparison of T. cruzi-infected mice administered Bz-plus-PTX treatment with infected mice treated with Bz). †, P < 0.05; ††, P < 0.01; †††, P < 0.001 (for comparison of T. cruzi-infected mice administered PTX, Bz, or Bz-plus-PTX treatment with infected mice pretherapy [120 dpi]).