Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0018681 (headache)
 56,091 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Increasing drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum and a resurgence of malaria in tropical areas have effected a change in treatment of malaria in the last two decades. Symptoms of malaria are fever, chills, headache, and malaise. The prognosis worsens as the parasite counts, counts of mature parasites, and counts of neutrophils containing pigment increase. Treatment depends on severity, age of patient, degree of background immunity, likely pattern of susceptibility to antimalarial drugs, and the cost and availability of drugs. Chloroquine should be used for P. vivax, P. malariae, and P. ovale. P. vivax has shown high resistance to chloroquine in Oceania, however. Primaquine may be needed to treat P. vivax and P. ovale to rid the body of hypnozoites that survive in the liver. Chloroquine can treat P. falciparum infections acquired in North Africa, Central America north of the Panama Canal, Haiti, or the Middle East but not in most of Africa and some parts of Asia and South America. In areas of low grade resistance to chloroquine, amodiaquine can be used to effectively treat falciparum malaria. A combination of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is responsive to falciparum infections with high grade resistance to chloroquine. Mefloquine, halofantrine, or quinine with tetracycline can be used to treat multidrug-resistant P. falciparum. Derivatives of artemisinin obtained from qinghao or sweet wormwood developed as pharmaceuticals in China are the most rapidly acting of all antimalarial drugs. Children tend to tolerate antimalarial drugs well. Children who weigh less than 15 kg should not be given mefloquine. Health workers should not prescribe primaquine to pregnant women or newborns due to the risk of hemolysis. Chloroquine, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, quinine, and quinidine can be safely given in therapeutic doses throughout pregnancy. Clinical manifestations of severe malaria are hypoglycemia, convulsions, severe anemia, acute renal failure, jaundice, pulmonary edema, cerebral malaria, shock, and acidosis. Health workers should be prepared to treat these symptoms accordingly.
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PMID:The treatment of malaria. 904 53

Use of antimalarial prophylaxis continues to be routine practice among military personnel returning from areas where malaria is endemic. Primaquine may be used for terminal prophylaxis against Plasmodium ovale and Plasmodium vivax. Serious complications of this regimen are infrequent. We report the occurrence of significant hemolytic anemia for two soldiers returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom. They presented with dark urine, headaches, and classic laboratory findings of hemolysis. Both soldiers were subsequently found to have glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, and both responded to conservative treatment and cessation of medication. Although this complication is unusual, medical personnel involved in the care of recently returned deployed service members should be alert to its potential occurrence among patients who are receiving antimalarial prophylaxis. This complication could be completely avoided with prescreening of personnel for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, as is currently done in the Air Force and Navy, before the use of primaquine.
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PMID:Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency in two returning Operation Iraqi Freedom soldiers who developed hemolytic anemia while receiving primaquine prophylaxis for malaria. 1591 92