Placental Hypoxia during Placental Malaria

Impaired placental autophagy in placental malaria

BACKGROUND Placental malaria is a major cause of low birthweight, principally due to impaired fetal growth. Intervillositis, a local inflammatory response to placental malaria, is central to the pathogenesis of poor fetal growth as it impairs transplacental amino acid transport. Given the link between inflammation and autophagy, we investigated whether placental malaria-associated intervillosit...

Diagnosis of placental malaria.

In a group of 596 delivering Ghanaian women, the sensitivities of peripheral blood thick film microscopy, ICT Malaria P.f/P.v test, and PCR in detecting microscopically confirmed placental Plasmodium falciparum infection were 42, 80, and 97%, respectively. In addition to the gross underestimation of placental malaria by peripheral blood film microscopy, submicroscopic infections were found to b...

Hypoxia and human placental development.

Grading schemes for placental malaria.

To the Editor—We have read with great interest the article by Muehlenbachs et al [1], in which the authors present a histological grading scheme for placental malaria. The authors emphasize that the basic aim of the proposal is to provide a tool to improve the comparison and standardization between the studies conducted in different geographical areas. However, it is surprising that the presenc...

Complement Activation in Placental Malaria

Sixty percent of all pregnancies worldwide occur in malaria endemic regions. Pregnant women are at greater risk of malaria infection than their non-pregnant counterparts and have a higher risk of adverse birth outcomes including low birth weight resulting from intrauterine growth restriction and/or preterm birth. The complement system plays an essential role in placental and fetal development a...