Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37068752›Full record

ArticleThe American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene2023

Pernicious Plasmodium vivax as a Historical Cause of Malarial Cachexia?

G Dennis Shanks

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
0.3field-weighted citation impact, top 42% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Malaria-Associated Mortality in the 19th Century.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2025
    Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.

G Dennis ShanksAustralian Defence Force Malaria and Infectious Disease Institute, Enoggera, Queensland, Australia; University of Queensland, School of Public Health, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
University of Queensland · AU

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Prior to the understanding of malaria as a parasitic disease, malaria cachexia was a loosely defined syndrome consisting of severe anemia and splenomegaly in a chronically wasted individual living in a malarious area. Entire rural populations in diverse areas such as the Thames estuary, Marseilles marshes, and the Mississippi valley were said to have cachexia on the basis of chronic malaria "poisoning," which accounted for their poor socioeconomic health. Malaria cachexia appeared to disappear as the marshes were drained, agriculture improved, and quinine or iron treatments were administered. Malaria cachexia's association with plasmodia in the blood was uncertain once blood smears were examined in the twentieth century. Modern studies have raised the question of chronic Plasmodium vivax in the spleen as a possible etiology; historical specimens could be examined to clarify malaria cachexia.

Indexed as

MalariaMalaria, VivaxPlasmodiumCachexiaHumansPlasmodium vivax

Identifiers

PMID37068752
PMCPMC10540106
OpenAlexW4366086878

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.