Despite no strong evidenceof the benefit regarding trypanocidal treatment, it may have affected our results as48 % of stage A patients were given this treatment compared to 12.1 % of stage C. Weminimized this confounder by adjusting the results for the trypanocidal treatment.In summary, our results suggest that the ACE I/D polymorphism ismore prevalent in patients with the cardiac form of Chagas disease and HF in thiscase-control study comprising a population from the Northeast region of Brazil. Here, ACE is linked to hydrops fetalis.