Defining the Effectiveness of Antimalarial Chemotherapy: Investigation of the Lag in Parasite Clearance Following Drug Administration.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The emergence of drug-resistant malaria highlights the need for new agents. A desired characteristic of candidate antimalarials is rapid killing of parasites. This is typically measured by the rate of exponential clearance of parasitemia following treatment. However, this clearance rate excludes the highly variable lag phase, when the parasitemia level may increase, remain constant, or decrease. Understanding factors determining this lag phase is important for drug development.

Methods

We assessed the kinetics of parasitemia in 112 volunteers infected with blood-stage Plasmodium falciparum and treated with 8 different antimalarials. The parasitemia level was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We analyzed the relationship between the timing of trea

SUBMITTER: Khoury DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4978373 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature