A 30-month prospective study on the treatment of retinoblastoma in the Gabriel Toure Teaching Hospital, Bamako, Mali.

Introduction: Retinoblastoma is one of the most common malignant tumours among children in Africa. However, very few studies on this disease have been published, especially studies from French-speaking countries in Africa.

Patients And Methods: Prospective study over a period of 30 months from 1 January 2005 to 30 June 2007 on all cases of retinoblastoma diagnosed and treated in the Paediatric Oncology Unit of the Gabriel Touré Hospital in Bamako, Mali.

Life-threatening malaria in African children: a prospective study in a mesoendemic urban setting.

Background: The population exposed to malaria within African cities has steadily increased. However, comprehensive data on life-threatening malaria features and risk factors in children from urban areas with seasonal malaria transmission, such as in Bamako (Mali), are lacking.

Methods: Children admitted to the Gabriel Touré Hospital in Bamako with severe malarial anemia (SMA) and/or cerebral malaria (CM) were prospectively included in the study.

Alleles 308A and 238A in the tumor necrosis factor alpha gene promoter do not increase the risk of severe malaria in children with Plasmodium falciparum infection in Mali.

The hypothesis that tumor necrosis factor (TNF) aggravates malaria in children is supported by observations that TNF polymorphisms and high TNF levels have been associated with cerebral malaria. Nevertheless, severe malaria was not associated with polymorphisms located at positions -308A and -238A in the TNF alpha gene promoter or with a high TNF level in plasma in children from Bamako, Mali.

Epilepsy as a consequence of cerebral malaria in area in which malaria is endemic in Mali, West Africa.

Purpose: Cerebral malaria (CM) is suspected to be a potential cause of epilepsy in tropical areas, but little information is available. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of CM in epilepsy among children in Mali.

Methods: An exposed-nonexposed study was performed to identify children who had epilepsy after malaria in the 0- to 15-year age group.

Evidence that interferon-gamma plays a protective role during cerebral malaria.

Background: The pathogenic mechanisms of cerebral malaria (CM) are unclear but are thought to involve cytokine-mediated inflammation enhanced by parasite sequestration in the brain microcirculation. The role that interferon (IFN)-gamma could play that would enhance inflammation but also reduce parasitemia is unclear.

Methods: Plasma IFN-gamma concentrations were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 96 children with CM and 40 children with uncomplicated malaria (UM) who had been recruited from Gabriel Toure Hospital (Bamako, Mali).

Familial aggregation of cerebral malaria and severe malarial anemia.

Background: The predominant manifestations of severe malaria in African children are cerebral malaria (CM) and severe malarial anemia (SMA). As a first step toward a family-based approach to identify the environmental and genetic pathways that contribute to severe malaria, we tested whether it aggregates within families.

Methods: Family history of severe malaria was explored during face-to-face interviews with parents.

Risk factors for severe malaria in Bamako, Mali: a matched case-control study.

The aim of this case-control study was to identify epidemiological risk factors for severe malaria among children living in Bamako, a malaria-endemic area. For this, 260 healthy community controls were matched to 130 patients with severe malaria. Conditional multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that all examined independent factors associated with severe malaria are directly related to characteristics of the child's mother, with the exception of the child's own yellow fever vaccination history (odds ratio (OR): 1.

Ocular lesions associated with malaria in children in Mali.

This study sought to estimate the frequency of ocular complications in malaria and its prognostic value in Mali. A total of 140 children (aged 6 months to 9 years) with severe malaria (105 with cerebral malaria, 35 without neurological complications) were compared with 34 children with mild malaria and 82 children with nonmalarial fever. Ocular lesions were rare in the mild malaria group (5.