Use of Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification in a Resource-Saving Strategy for Primary Malaria Screening in a Non-Endemic Setting.

Use of Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification in a Resource-Saving Strategy for Primary Malaria Screening in a Non-Endemic Setting. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2019 Jan 21;: Authors: Hartmeyer GN, Hoegh SV, Skov MN, Kemp M Abstract Malaria is traditionally diagnosed by blood smear microscopy, which requires continuous resource-demanding training. In areas with only a few cases of malaria, a simple and rapid test that can reliably exclude malaria could significantly reduce the need for microscopy and training. We evaluated whether loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) for screening malaria parasites could reduce the workload in the diagnosis of malaria. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification was used to analyze 38 EDTA blood samples from 23 patients who had previously been tested for malaria by microscopy, antigen-based rapid diagnostic test (antigen-RDT), and in-house real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The samples included blood with low-level parasitaemia and samples with discrepancies between the results of the different methods. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification detected malaria parasites in 27 of 28 samples that were positive according to in-house RT-PCR. There were negative microscopy results in 10 of these and negative antigen-RDT results in 11. The sample with a negative LAMP result and positive in-house RT-PCR result was from a patient who had recently been treated for low-level Plasmodium falciparum malaria pa...
Source: The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene - Category: Tropical Medicine Authors: Tags: Am J Trop Med Hyg Source Type: research