Brain Swelling Tied to Malarial Deaths in Children, Study

Cerebral malaria - the most lethal type of mosquito-borne disease is an extremely dangerous medical condition that can often lead to coma or death.

The lethality behind the disease has largely remained a mystery up until now.

According to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it has been discovered that cerebral malaria deaths are caused due to the swelling of the brain.

It is known to have claimed the lives of 15-25 per cent of African children diagnosed with this condition. Survivors may have to cope with severe learning disabilities and in some cases, loss of ability to hear or even blindness.

As part of the study, MRI's were performed on 168 children diagnosed with cerebral malaria. Twenty five children died with 84 per cent of them showing severe swelling of the brain in the reports. Among survivors, only 27 per of the children were shown to have severe swelling.

Researchers reported, "Increased brain volume was seen in children who died from cerebral malaria but was uncommon in those who did not die from the disease, a finding that suggests that raised intracranial pressure may contribute to a fatal outcome."

Senior author of the study, Dr Terrie Taylor said, "What's killing these kids is that they stop breathing, because the respiratory center in the brain stem is compressed by the swelling."

With the new findings, researchers are hopeful that in cases where there is severe swelling, ventilators can be used to help children maintain their breathing.

Taylor said, "The next step is to identify what's causing the swelling and then develop treatments targeting those causes. It's also possible that using ventilators to keep the children breathing until the swelling subsides might save lives, but ventilators are few and far between in Africa at the moment."