Performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria: a case-control study from Malawi.
Because of its propensity to sequester in the placental intervillous space, Plasmodium falciparum can evade detection by peripheral smear in women with placental malaria (PM). We evaluated host biomarkers as potential indicators of occult PM infections.Using a case-control design, we evaluated the a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2011-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3236186?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1818594540134596608 |
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| author | Andrea L Conroy W Conrad Liles Malcolm E Molyneux Stephen J Rogerson Kevin C Kain |
| author_facet | Andrea L Conroy W Conrad Liles Malcolm E Molyneux Stephen J Rogerson Kevin C Kain |
| author_sort | Andrea L Conroy |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Because of its propensity to sequester in the placental intervillous space, Plasmodium falciparum can evade detection by peripheral smear in women with placental malaria (PM). We evaluated host biomarkers as potential indicators of occult PM infections.Using a case-control design, we evaluated the ability of biomarkers to identify PM in the absence of circulating peripheral parasites (n = 24) compared to placental smear-negative controls (n = 326). We measured levels of biomarkers (C3a, C5a, CRP, angiopoietin-1, angiopoietin-2, sTie-2, sEndoglin, VEGF, sFlt-1, tissue factor, and leptin) in maternal peripheral plasma at delivery. Using ROC curve analysis, we assessed the ability of clinical parameters and biomarkers to accurately detect PM infections identified by placental smear. We show that decreases in sFlt-1 and leptin and increases in CRP were associated with occult PM infections (p<0.01) and correlated with placental parasitaemia (p<0.01). Individually, all markers had moderate ability to diagnose occult PM infections with areas under the ROC between 0.62 and 0.72. In order to improve diagnostic performance, we generated simple scoring systems to identify PM infections using either a clinical score (0-2), a biomarker score (0-3) or a clinical plus biomarker score (0-5). The combinatorial model that incorporated both clinical parameters and biomarkers had an area under curve (AUC) of 0.85 (95% CI, 0.81-0.89), which was significantly better at identifying occult PM infections than the clinical score alone (p = 0.001).These data suggest that host biomarkers in the maternal peripheral blood may improve the detection of PM in the absence of peripheral parasitaemia. |
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| id | doaj.art-d6d570c7aa34401d888c4ef3da6e89d3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-16T11:01:44Z |
| publishDate | 2011-01-01 |
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| spelling | doaj.art-d6d570c7aa34401d888c4ef3da6e89d32022-12-21T22:33:59ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032011-01-01612e2854010.1371/journal.pone.0028540Performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria: a case-control study from Malawi.Andrea L ConroyW Conrad LilesMalcolm E MolyneuxStephen J RogersonKevin C KainBecause of its propensity to sequester in the placental intervillous space, Plasmodium falciparum can evade detection by peripheral smear in women with placental malaria (PM). We evaluated host biomarkers as potential indicators of occult PM infections.Using a case-control design, we evaluated the ability of biomarkers to identify PM in the absence of circulating peripheral parasites (n = 24) compared to placental smear-negative controls (n = 326). We measured levels of biomarkers (C3a, C5a, CRP, angiopoietin-1, angiopoietin-2, sTie-2, sEndoglin, VEGF, sFlt-1, tissue factor, and leptin) in maternal peripheral plasma at delivery. Using ROC curve analysis, we assessed the ability of clinical parameters and biomarkers to accurately detect PM infections identified by placental smear. We show that decreases in sFlt-1 and leptin and increases in CRP were associated with occult PM infections (p<0.01) and correlated with placental parasitaemia (p<0.01). Individually, all markers had moderate ability to diagnose occult PM infections with areas under the ROC between 0.62 and 0.72. In order to improve diagnostic performance, we generated simple scoring systems to identify PM infections using either a clinical score (0-2), a biomarker score (0-3) or a clinical plus biomarker score (0-5). The combinatorial model that incorporated both clinical parameters and biomarkers had an area under curve (AUC) of 0.85 (95% CI, 0.81-0.89), which was significantly better at identifying occult PM infections than the clinical score alone (p = 0.001).These data suggest that host biomarkers in the maternal peripheral blood may improve the detection of PM in the absence of peripheral parasitaemia.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3236186?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Andrea L Conroy W Conrad Liles Malcolm E Molyneux Stephen J Rogerson Kevin C Kain Performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria: a case-control study from Malawi. PLoS ONE |
| title | Performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria: a case-control study from Malawi. |
| title_full | Performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria: a case-control study from Malawi. |
| title_fullStr | Performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria: a case-control study from Malawi. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria: a case-control study from Malawi. |
| title_short | Performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria: a case-control study from Malawi. |
| title_sort | performance characteristics of combinations of host biomarkers to identify women with occult placental malaria a case control study from malawi |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3236186?pdf=render |
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