Falciparum malaria affect all ages with multiple-systemic complications which varies in different age group. We studied 242 children with complicated Falciparum malaria with a median age of 6.5 years to look for occurrence of different complications in younger and older age groups and overall mortality picture. Unarousable coma (40.5%), severe anemia (26.03%), repeated seizures (46.2%) and hepatopathy (32.2%) were commonest complications. Under five children had higher risk of development of cerebral malaria (P<0.01), severe anemia (P<0.05) and seizures (P<0.001); whereas above five children had higher risk of acute renal failure (P<0.05) and malarial hepatopathy (P<0.02). Over all mortality was 9.9%, cerebral malaria being the commonest cause (6.6%). Multi-system involvement was seen in 58.4% cases of death. Children having pulmonary edema, shock and cerebral malaria had high case fatality rate.

Letters to the Editor bodies in the bone marrow or splenic aspiration is most important in these cases, confirming the diagnosis.

A prospective study done in 216 children with complicated falciparum malaria showed hepatopathy in 33.3% of cases with a higher incidence in children aged above five years. Bilirubin and alanine aminotransferase were moderately raised in most cases. No significant association with other common complications and no higher risk of mortality was observed.

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Background: Glasgow-Blatchford bleeding score (GBS), was developed to predict the need for hospital-based intervention (transfusion, endoscopic therapy or surgery) or death following upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Study evaluated the Glasgow Blatchford score’s (GBS) ability to identify high risk patients who needed blood transfusion in patients with UGI haemorrhage.Methods: A total of 270 cases admitted with upper gastrointestinal bleeding in the Medical ICU/Wards of MKCG Medical College were put on Blatchford scoring system and classified as those requiring (high risk = GBS >1) and not requiring blood transfusion (low risk) based on the score assigned on admission and a correlation between initial scoring and requirement of blood transfusion was done.Results: Units of blood transfusion required, the GBS and duration of hospital stay were significantly lower among the low risk group, all with p value <0.001. No blood transfusion was required in patients with GBS <3. There was significant correlation between GB score and requirement of blood transfusion (p <0.001) and duration of hospital stay (p <0.001). GBS had 100% sensitivity, negative predictive value and positive likelihood ratio, when a cut off of > 16 was used in predicting mortality.Conclusions: Patients presenting with Upper GI bleeding can be triaged in casualty with Glasgow Blatchford scoring. Patients with a low score of less than or equal to 3 can be safely discharged and reviewed on follow up thereby reducing admission, allowing more efficient use of hospital resources.