Performance of BinaxNOW for diagnosis of malaria in a U.S. hospital.
Microscopic diagnosis and species identification of Plasmodium in areas of nonendemicity provide a robust method for malaria diagnosis but are technically challenging. A prospective study was conducted to measure the performance of BinaxNOW compared to microscopy (the gold standard) in a U.S. teaching hospital. Overall, BinaxNOW was 84.2% sensitive and 99.8% specific. Excluding patients on antimalarial therapy, the sensitivity was 92.9%. Importantly, BinaxNOW initially misclassified a case of Plasmodium falciparum malaria as non-falciparum. These results support the judicious use of BinaxNOW in screening of individuals suspected of having malaria in areas of nonendemicity.
Department of Pathology, Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.
Michael A
MA
Dimaio
Irma T
IT
Pereira
Tracy I
TI
George
Niaz
N
Banaei
D000368:Aged; D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000379:methods; D008288:Malaria / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000469:parasitology; D008297:Male; D008853:Microscopy; D010274:Parasitology / Q000379:methods*; D010961:Plasmodium / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014481:United States