Serum retinol concentration in patients with acute falciparum malaria in Aligarh, India.
BACKGROUND
Vitamin A (retinol)-deficiency and falciparum malaria are two major public health problems in developing countries. Falciparum malaria is associated with significant destruction of erythrocytes and can lead to severe anaemia.


METHODS
The present study was designed to estimate the serum retinol concentration in 150 acute falciparum-malaria patients (aged two to five years) by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Serum retinol concentrations of 20 healthy (age and sex matched, population based) volunteers were included as controls.


RESULTS
The mean serum retinol concentration of healthy controls was 34.31 +/- 1.274 microg/dl and that of diseased cohort was 12.562 +/- 0.276 microg/dl. The mean parasitemia was 1239.2 +/- 33.609 per microL.


CONCLUSIONS
The diseased cohort demonstrated significant reduction in concentrations of retinol in comparison to healthy controls (p < 0.001) and there was an inverse relationship (coefficient of correlation r = -0.899) between parasitemia and serum retinol concentration.
Raza
Adil
A
Department of Microbiology, J.N. Medical College and Hospital, AMU, India.
Khan
Haris M
HM
Malik
Mohd Ashraf
MA
Mahdi
Abbas Ali
AA
Shahid
Mohd
M
Shujatullah
Fatima
F
D001361:Avitaminosis / Q000150:complications*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000150:complications*; D008297:Male; D018512:Parasitemia; D044967:Serum / Q000737:chemistry*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014801:Vitamin A / Q000097:blood*
D014801:Vitamin A