ArticleScientific reports2021
A unique volatile signature distinguishes malaria infection from other conditions that cause similar symptoms.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Noninvasive malaria detection beyond blood sampling.Sensors & diagnostics · 2026Review
- Article
- Correlation of Inflammatory Biomarkers and IgG4 Antibodies with Malaria in Cameroon's Buea Municipality Children.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Breath Biomarkers of Pediatric Malaria: Reproducibility and Response to Antimalarial Therapy.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Article
- The volatilome signatures of Plasmodium falciparum parasites during the intraerythrocytic development cycle in vitro under exposure to artemisinin drug.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- No skin off your back: the sampling and extraction of sebum for metabolomics.Metabolomics : Official journal of the Metabolomic Society · 2023Review
- The Potential Use of Volatile Biomarkers for Malaria Diagnosis.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Recent findings suggest that changes in human odors caused by malaria infection have significant potential as diagnostic biomarkers. However, uncertainty remains regarding the specificity of such biomarkers, particularly in populations where many different pathological conditions may elicit similar symptoms. We explored the ability of volatile biomarkers to predict malaria infection status in Kenyan schoolchildren exhibiting a range of malaria-like symptoms. Using genetic algorithm models to explore data from skin volatile collections, we were able to identify malaria infection with 100% accuracy among children with fever and 75% accuracy among children with other symptoms. While we observed characteristic changes in volatile patterns driven by symptomatology, our models also identified malaria-specific biomarkers with robust predictive capability even in the presence of other pathogens that elicit similar symptoms.
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