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Severe imported falciparum malaria among adults requiring intensive care: a retrospective study at the hospital for tropical diseases, London

Marks, ME; Armstrong, M; Suvari, MM; Batson, S; Whitty, JMC; Chiodini, PL; Bellinghan, G; (2013) Severe imported falciparum malaria among adults requiring intensive care: a retrospective study at the hospital for tropical diseases, London. BMC Infectious Diseases , 13 , Article 118. 10.1186/1471-2334-13-118. Green open access

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Abstract

Background Malaria is the commonest imported infection in the UK. Malaria requiring ICU admission has a reported mortality of up to 25%. The relationship between ethnicity, immunity, and risk of malaria is complex. The Malaria Score for Adults (MSA) and Coma Acidosis Malaria (CAM) score have recently been proposed to risk stratify patients with malaria. Methods Retrospective study of patients with WHO severe falciparum malaria admitted to ICU at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London, UK. The relationship between clinical variables and risk of death or a prolonged ICU stay were examined with logistic regression. The predictive value of the MSA and CAM score were calculated. Results 124 patients were included. Cerebral malaria and acute kidney injury occurred earlier (median day 1) than acute respiratory distress syndrome (median day 3). Six patients had community acquired bacterial co-infection. Eight patients were co-infected with HIV, five of whom were newly diagnosed. The positive predictive value of a CAM score ≥2 or an MSA ≥5 for death were 12% and 22% respectively. Five patients died. No variable was significantly associated with risk of death. There were no significant differences between individuals raised in endemic countries compared to non-endemic countries. Conclusions Mortality in patients managed in a specialist centre was low. Patients who died succumbed to complications associated with a prolonged stay on ICU rather than malaria per se. The clinical usefulness of the MSA and CAM score was limited. Co-infection with HIV was relatively common but compared to studies in children, bacteraemia was uncommon. The relationship between ethnicity and immunity to severe disease is complex

Type: Article
Title: Severe imported falciparum malaria among adults requiring intensive care: a retrospective study at the hospital for tropical diseases, London
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2334-13-118
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-13-118
Language: English
Additional information: © 2013 Marks et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine > Experimental and Translational Medicine
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1443029
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