CD40LG and Chagas disease: It was observed that both Chagas disease and VL patients presented high serum levels of sCD40L (mean ± SD; 3,935 ± 2,804 pg/ml and 3,579 ± 3,878 pg/ml, respectively) and MMP-9 (mean ± SD; 138,151 ± 85,242 pg/ml and 21,815 ± 20,164 pg/ml, respectively); levels significantly higher than those of the non endemic controls (mean ± SD of sCD40L was 8.8 ± 20.26 pg/ml; and of MMP-9 was 13,393 ± 5,363 pg/ml) (p < 0.05) (Figure 1).