Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2013 Apr 15:8:59.
doi: 10.1186/1746-1596-8-59.

Reliability of rapid diagnostic test for diagnosing peripheral and placental malaria in an area of unstable malaria transmission in Eastern Sudan

Awadalla H Kashif  1 , Gamal K Adam, Ahmed A Mohmmed, Salah E Elzaki, Ahmed M AbdelHalim, Ishag Adam
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Reliability of rapid diagnostic test for diagnosing peripheral and placental malaria in an area of unstable malaria transmission in Eastern Sudan

Awadalla H Kashif et al. Diagn Pathol. .

Abstract

Background: Diagnosing Plasmodium falciparum malaria during pregnancy is a great challenge for clinicians because of the low density of parasites in the peripheral blood and parasite sequestration in the placenta. Nevertheless, few data on the use of malaria rapid diagnostic test (RDT) during pregnancy have been published.

Methods: P. falciparum infections were assessed in 156 febrile pregnant women by microscopic examination of their blood smears and by RDT and polymerase chain reactions (PCR). In addition, 150 women were assessed at the time of delivery by microscopy, RDT, PCR and placental histology investigations. The study was conducted at the Gadarif Hospital, Eastern Sudan. The SD Bioline P. f / P. v (Bio Standard Diagnostics, Gurgaon, Korea) RDT kit was evaluated in this study.

Results: Among the febrile pregnant women, 17 (11.0%), 26 (16.7%) and 18 (11.5%) positive cases of P. falciparum were detected by microscopy, RDT, and PCR, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of the microscopy was 94.4% and 100%, respectively. The corresponding values for RDT evaluation were 83.3% and 92.0%, as compared with PCR as the gold standard.While there were no detected cases of malaria by microscopic examination of blood smears, 27 (18.0%), 21(14.0%) and 46 (30.7%) out of the 150 placentae investigated had P. falciparum as determined by RDT, PCR, and histology, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity for RDT was 17.4% and 81.7%, respectively. The corresponding values for PCR were 6.5% and 82.7%, where histology was used as the gold standard.

Conclusions: The RDT kit used in this study has poor performance for peripheral and placental P. falciparum malaria detection in this setting.

Virtual slides: The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1092363465928479.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Accuracy of microscopy and RDT in comparison with PCR for detecting malaria infection among 156 febrile pregnant women in Eastern Sudan.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Comparison of receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve for microscope RDT and PCR for diagnosing peripheral (A) and placental malaria (B).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Accuracy of RDT and PCR in comparison with histology for detecting placental malaria infection at Gadarif Hospital, Eastern Sudan.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. WHO. World Malaria Report 2010. Geneva, Switzerland; 2010. Available: http://www.who.int/malaria/world_malaria_report_2010/worldmalariareport2....
    1. Dellicour S, Tatem AJ, Guerra CA, Snow RW, ter Kuile FO. Quantifying the number of pregnancies at risk of malaria in 2007: a demographic study. PLoS Med. 2010;7:e1000221. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000221. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hviid L. The role of Plasmodium falciparum variant surface antigens in protective immunity and vaccine development. Hum Vaccin. 2010;6:84–89. doi: 10.4161/hv.6.1.9602. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Uneke CJ. Diagnosis of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa: the challenges and public health implications. Parasitol Res. 2008;102:333–342. doi: 10.1007/s00436-007-0782-6. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bánhidy F, Lowry RB, Czeizel AE. Risk and benefit of drug use during pregnancy. Int J Med Sci. 2005;2:100–106. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources