Usefulness of quantitative nucleic Acid sequence-based amplification for diagnosis of malaria in an academic hospital setting.
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of quantitative nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (QT-NASBA) to detect Plasmodium spp. in diagnostic specimens of patients suspected of having malaria in a clinical setting in a non-endemic country. During the 4-month recruitment period, 113 patients were enrolled in the study, of which 93 were diagnosed as non-malaria and 20 as malaria cases on the basis of clinical and microscopic criteria. All microscopically positive cases had QT-NASBA counts of >0.1 parasites/ micro l and there was a significant positive correlation between the parasite counts obtained with both diagnostic methods. Of the 93 microscopically negative cases, six had a positive QT-NASBA result. Three of these cases had a recent history of malaria for which specific treatment was taken. In the other three cases there was no history of malaria and QT-NASBA results in these cases were near the cut-off level (>0.1 parasites/ micro l) of the test. The results demonstrate that QT-NASBA is a useful technology for the diagnosis of malaria in a reference laboratory, and it is very helpful in cases of low parasitemia.
Schallig
H D F H
HD
KIT (Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen/Royal Tropical Institute), KIT Biomedical Research, Meibergdreef 39, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. H.Schallig@kit.nl
Schoone
G J
GJ
Lommerse
E J M
EJ
Kroon
C C M
CC
de Vries
P J
PJ
van Gool
T
T
D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D000818:Animals; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D016053:RNA, Protozoan / Q000032:analysis; D021161:Self-Sustained Sequence Replication / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
D016053:RNA, Protozoan