OCCURRENCE AND SEVERITY OF ACUTE RENAL FAILURE IN MALARIA

Objective: To assess the occurrence and severity of acute renal failure in hospitalized malaria patients. Patients and Methods: In a hospital based set up out of 400 cases of fever, 102 were detected with positive malarial parasite. Clinical history and assessment were recorded in all the study patients and all other known etiological causes of fever and jaundice were excluded by relevant investigations. The renal function test including both Blood urea and serum creatinine was done for the patients.Acute Renal Failure(ARF): Those with serum creatinine >1.5 mg% and normal size kidneys on USG were included in ARF and further divided in 3 groups: mild (Scr < 2 mg%), moderate (Scr 2-5 mg%) and severe (Scr>5mg%). Result: Of total 102 malaria positive patients, Plasmodium falciparum was seen in 6 patients (5.88%), plasmodium vivax in 46(45.09%) and mixed infection in 50patients (49.01%). Eleven patients (10.78%) out of 102 patients had ARF and malarial positive. Plasmodium falciparum was the causative agent in 1; P.vivax in 3 and mixed infection in 7 patients. Out of 102 patients two patients had severe renal failure with creatinine values more than 5mg/dl. 89.22% of patients with malaria had serum creatinine below 1.5mg/dl. Conclusion: It can be concluded that in south kanara region it is the mixed and plain P.vivax which was more common.ARF occurs commonly in plasmodium falciparum malaria but in our study it has been reported in mixed & plasmodium vivax.