Asian Journal of Pediatric Research

Aims: To firstly determine the incidence of acute renal failure (ARF) related to malaria in a series of 11 cases among admitted patients at the pediatric hospitals in Dakar, Senegal and to lastly measure the performance of rapid diagnostic test (RDT) and microscopy in malaria diagnosis using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as a gold standard.

Study Design: A bi-centric and descriptive study was carried out.

Place and Duration of Study: From June 2018 to January 2019 in two university hospitals of Dakar, Senegal: Aristide Le Dantec university hospital and Albert Royer university hospital.

Methodology: Pediatric patients aged under 18 years with confirmed malaria by RDT or microscopy and ARF defined by anuria or oligo-anuria and a decrease in glomerular filtration rate were included. Nested PCR was performed to confirm malaria diagnosis and Plasmodium species typing.

Results: In total, 11 ARF cases (8.5%) related to malaria among 130 children infected with malaria parasites were included out of 4,474 hospitalized. Affected children were aged between 2 and 16 years with a mean age of 11 years and a sex ratio of 0.57. For malaria diagnosis, RDTs were positive for all patients while microscopy only revealed 6 cases (54.5%) as well as PCR. However, microscopy and PCR presented two discrepancies. Considering PCR as the gold standard tool, RDT showed a relative high sensitivity (100%) and zero specificity with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 54.6% while microscopy respectively showed a sensitivity and a specificity of 66.7 and 60%.

Conclusion: This study showed the relatedness between ARF and P. falciparum malaria. Even though microscopy remains the gold standard for the diagnosis of malaria but microscopists must be regularly trained. In addition, RDT should always be confirmed by microscopy and preferably by PCR.