Cause of anaemia in malaria
Woodruff, A.W.; Ansdell, V.E.; Pettitt, L.E.
Lancet 1(8125): 1055-1057
1979
ISSN/ISBN: 0140-6736 PMID: 86777 Document Number: 141087
At the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London, UK, 5 patients with Plasmodium falciparum malaria, 2 with P. vivax and one with P. ovale were treated with chloroquine to completely eradicate the parasites. Subsequent 151Cr studies showed that anaemia due to haemolysis continued for 4 to 5 weeks after eradication; the haemolysis was greatest in those with heavy P. falciparum infections, but some degree of haemolysis occurred even in the patients with the milder P. vivax and P. ovale infections. 3 patients with P. falciparum infections had complement on their erythrocyte surfaces, indicating that complement-containing immune complexes are involved in the haemolytic process. Measurement of radioactivity over the spleen and precordium indicated that many of the erythrocytes damaged by the immune process are destroyed in the spleen. 59Fe studies and reticulocyte counts indicated that immediately after parasite eradication erythropoiesis is depressed slightly but that this depression would not, of itself, produce anaemia, which is largely haemolytic in origin.