TY - JOUR AU - Kurth, Florian AU - Lingscheid, Tilman AU - Steiner, Florian AU - Stegemann, Miriam AU - Bélard, Sabine AU - Menner, Nikolai AU - Pongratz, Peter AU - Kim, Johanna AU - von Bernuth, Horst AU - Mayer, Beate AU - Damm, Georg AU - Seehofer, Daniel AU - Salama, Abdulgabar AU - Suttorp, Norbert AU - Zoller, Thomas T1 - Hemolysis after Oral Artemisinin Combination Therapy for Uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum Malaria T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2016 VL - 22 IS - 8 SP - 1381 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Episodes of delayed hemolysis 2–6 weeks after treatment of severe malaria with intravenous artesunate have been described. We performed a prospective observational study of patients with uncomplicated malaria to investigate whether posttreatment hemolysis also occurs after oral artemisinin-based combination therapy. Eight of 20 patients with uncomplicated malaria who were given oral artemisinin-based combination therapy met the definition of posttreatment hemolysis (low haptoglobin level and increased lactate dehydrogenase level on day 14). Five patients had hemolysis persisting for 1 month. Patients with posttreatment hemolysis had a median decrease in hemoglobin level of 1.3 g/dL (interquartile range 0.3–2.0 g/dL) in the posttreatment period, and patients without posttreatment hemolysis had a median increase of 0.3 g/dL (IQR −0.1 to 0.7 g/dL; p = 0.002). These findings indicate a need for increased vigilance for hemolytic events in malaria patients, particularly those with predisposing factors for anemia. KW - malaria KW - uncomplicated malaria KW - Plasmodium falciparum KW - parasites KW - hemolysis KW - artemisinin KW - oral artemisinin combination therapy KW - clinical study KW - hemoglobin KW - haptoglobin KW - lactate dehydrogenase KW - anemia KW - Antimicrobial Resistance DO - 10.3201/eid2208.151905 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/22/8/15-1905_article ER - End of Reference