Diastolic function is early involved during the undetermined form of Chagas disease. Pulsed Doppler tissue imaging is a new technique to evaluate diastolic function by mean of the record of myocardial velocities in the longitudinal axis. With the purpose to evaluate diastolic function by pulsed Doppler tissue imaging in patients with Chagas disease, we studied with Doppler echocardiography 51 patients (age average 48 +/- 12 years) and 24 normal subjects (age average 47 +/- 15 years) as a control group. Patients were divided in two groups according to the pattern of mitral and pulmonary vein flow: restrictive (17 patients) and no restrictive (35 patients). Peak velocity of E wave of the lateral mitral annulus was diminished in no restrictive and restrictive patients (0.13 +/- 0.04 m/s, 0.11 +/- 0.05 m/s respectively) in regard to control group (0.18 +/- 0.07 m/s, p < 0.01). Pulsed Doppler tissue imaging was useful in the assessment of diastolic function in Chagas disease, including patients with no restrictive mitral and pulmonary vein filling pattern.