title: Severe falciparum malaria.
abstract: Falciparum malaria affect all ages with multiple-systemic complications which varies in different age group. We studied 242 children with complicated Falciparum malaria with a median age of 6.5 years to look for occurrence of different complications in younger and older age groups and overall mortality picture. Unarousable coma (40.5%), severe anemia (26.03%), repeated seizures (46.2%) and hepatopathy (32.2%) were commonest complications. Under five children had higher risk of development of cerebral malaria (P<0.01), severe anemia (P<0.05) and seizures (P<0.001); whereas above five children had higher risk of acute renal failure (P<0.05) and malarial hepatopathy (P<0.02). Over all mortality was 9.9%, cerebral malaria being the commonest cause (6.6%). Multi-system involvement was seen in 58.4% cases of death. Children having pulmonary edema, shock and cerebral malaria had high case fatality rate.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, M.K.C.G. Medical College and Hospital, Berhampur, Orissa, India. sarojsat@yahoo.co.uk
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Satpathy
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mohanty
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nanda
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Samal
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000150:complications* / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies