Martinez-Peinado, NievesCortes Serra, NúriaLosada Galván, IreneAlonso Vega, CristinaUrbina, Julio A.Rodríguez, AnaVandeBerg, John L.Pinazo, Maria-JesusGascón i Brustenga, JoaquimAlonso Padilla, Julio2024-05-272024-05-272020-07-191354-3784https://hdl.handle.net/2445/211921ntroduction: Chagas disease treatment relies on the lengthy administration of benznidazole and/or nifurtimox, which have frequent toxicity associated. The disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is mostly diagnosed at its chronic phase when life-threatening symptomatology manifest in approximately 30% of those infected. Considering that both available drugs have variable efficacy by then, and there are over 6 million people infected, there is a pressing need to find safer, more efficacious drugs. Areas covered: We provide an updated view of the path to achieve the aforementioned goal. From state-of-the-art in vitro and in vivo assays based on genetically engineered parasites that have allowed high throughput screenings of large chemical collections, to the unfulfilled requirement of having treatment-response biomarkers for the clinical evaluation of drugs. In between, we describe the most promising pre-clinical hits and the landscape of clinical trials with new drugs or new regimens of existing ones. Moreover, the use of monkey models to reduce the pre-clinical to clinical attrition rate is discussed. Expert opinion: In addition to the necessary research on new drugs and much awaited biomarkers of treatment efficacy, a key step will be to generalize access to diagnosis and treatment and maximize efforts to impede transmission.13 p.application/pdfeng(c) Informa Healthcare, 2020Malaltia de ChagasMalalties parasitàriesChagas' diseaseParasitic diseasesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article7259712024-05-27info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess