High Plasma Levels of Neopterin Are Associated with Increased Mortality among Children with Severe Malaria in Benin
Samuel Odarkwei Blankson,
Lauriane Rietmeyer,
Patrick Tettey,
Liliane Dikroh,
Bernard Tornyigah,
Rafiou Adamou,
Azizath Moussiliou,
Caroline Padounou,
Annick Amoussou,
Benedicta Ayiedu Mensah,
Maroufou J. Alao,
Gordon Awandare,
Nicaise Tuikue Ndam,
Christian Roussilhon,
Rachida Tahar
Affiliations
Samuel Odarkwei Blankson
MERIT, IRD, Université de Paris Cité, 75006 Paris, France
Lauriane Rietmeyer
MERIT, IRD, Université de Paris Cité, 75006 Paris, France
Patrick Tettey
Department of Immunology, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, Accra LG 54, Ghana
Liliane Dikroh
Department of Immunology, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, Accra LG 54, Ghana
Bernard Tornyigah
MERIT, IRD, Université de Paris Cité, 75006 Paris, France
Rafiou Adamou
Institut de Recherche Clinique du Benin (IRCB), Calavi, Benin
Azizath Moussiliou
Institut de Recherche Clinique du Benin (IRCB), Calavi, Benin
Caroline Padounou
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de l’Oueme, Porto-Novo, Benin
Annick Amoussou
Service de Pédiatrie, Centre Hospitalo-Universitaire, Suruléré (CHU-Suruléré), Cotonou, Benin
Benedicta Ayiedu Mensah
Department of Immunology, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, Accra LG 54, Ghana
Maroufou J. Alao
Département de Pédiatrie, Hôpital Mère-Enfant la Lagune (CHUMEL), Cotonou, Benin
Gordon Awandare
West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana, Accra LG 54, Ghana
Nicaise Tuikue Ndam
MERIT, IRD, Université de Paris Cité, 75006 Paris, France
Christian Roussilhon
Institut Pasteur, 28 Rue du Docteur Roux, 75015 Paris, France
Rachida Tahar
MERIT, IRD, Université de Paris Cité, 75006 Paris, France
Among the barriers to accessing adequate treatment and high-level monitoring for malaria febrile patients is the lack of effective prognostic markers. Neopterin, which is a marker of monocyte/macrophage activation, was found have increased during severe malaria. In this study, we used quantitative ELISA in order to assess the levels of plasma soluble neopterin in 151 patients from a cohort of Beninese children with severe malaria. We evaluated the prognostic accuracy of this molecule in order to predict the outcome of the disease. Our results show that neopterin levels were not significantly different between patients with different forms of severe malaria, including severe non-cerebral malaria (SNCM) and cerebral malaria (CM). However, the levels of this molecule were found to be higher in patients with severe malarial anemia (SMA) among both CM and SNCM cases (p-value = 0.02). Additionally, the levels of this molecule were found to be higher in patients who died from these pathologies compared to those who survived among the two clinical groups (p-value p-value p-value = 0.0046 for the SNCM group). The AUC-ROC for fatality among all the severe cases was 0.77 with a 95%CI of (0.69–0.85). These results suggest that plasma neopterin levels constitute a potential biomarker for predicting fatality among severe falciparum malaria patients.
