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  • Clinical/Perinatal Neonatal Case Presentation
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Clinical Perinatal/Neonatal Case Presentation

Persistence of Plasmodium falciparum in the Placenta After Apparently Effective Quinidine/Clindamycin Therapy

Journal of Perinatology volume 21, pages 128–130 (2001)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 04 September 2001

Abstract

The persistence of Plasmodium falciparum in the placenta after apparently adequate therapy with quinine has been described.1 We describe this phenomenon in the placenta of a 19-year-old woman with falciparum malaria, who was treated with a combination of quinidine and clindamycin. Although this therapy was effective and diminished her peripheral blood parasitemia from 3% at presentation to almost undetectable at the time of delivery, vast numbers of P. falciparum-infected erythrocytes were present in the maternal sinusoids of the placenta. This sequestration of infected erythrocytes produced a local parasitemia in the placenta of 70% to 80%. Additionally, rare Plasmodium-infected erythrocytes were also seen in the fetal blood of the placenta. We review malaria in pregnancy, parasitic involvement of the placenta and emphasize that Plasmodium-infected erythrocytes may persist in the placenta even after clearance of parasites from the peripheral blood.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Microbiology (G.W.P.), Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH

    Gary W Procop MD

  2. Department of Pathology (R.J.), Hillcrest Medical Center, Tulsa, OK

    Robert Jessen MD

  3. Department of Pathology (S.R.H.), St. Francis Medical Center, Tulsa, OK

    Scott R Hyde PhD

  4. Tulsa Infectious Diseases (D.N.S.), Tulsa, OK

    David N Scheck MD

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  1. Gary W Procop MD
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  2. Robert Jessen MD
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  4. David N Scheck MD
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Procop, G., Jessen, R., Hyde, S. et al. Persistence of Plasmodium falciparum in the Placenta After Apparently Effective Quinidine/Clindamycin Therapy. J Perinatol 21, 128–130 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jp.7200465

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