ArticleInternal and emergency medicine2026
External validation of the Malaria Scoring System in a non-endemic emergency department.
Article in Internal and emergency medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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.
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.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The incidence of malaria is increasing even in non-endemic regions, posing a diagnostic challenge. Limited awareness of the disease may result in delayed diagnosis, potentially leading to severe complications. This study aims to externally validate the Malaria Scoring System (MSS), a diagnostic tool originally developed and validated in Sweden, to identify patients at higher risk of plasmodial infection. The MSS incorporates key clinical and laboratory parameters, including recent travel to Sub-Saharan Africa, hematological abnormalities (thrombocytopenia, anemia, lymphopenia, neutropenia), and high fever. A score of ≥ 3 is associated with an increased probability of malaria. A retrospective, single-center study was conducted at the Emergency Department of Santa Croce e Carle Hospital (Cuneo, Italy), including all patients tested for malaria between January 2013 and July 2024. The diagnostic performance of the MSS was assessed in terms of discrimination using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and calibration via the Hosmer-Lemeshow test and calibration belt analysis. A total of 365 patients were included, of whom 114 (31.2%) were diagnosed with malaria. Fever was more frequent among malaria patients (96.5% vs. 84.1%, p < 0.001). Laboratory findings revealed significant differences, with a higher prevalence of thrombocytopenia (78.1% vs. 8.4%, p < 0.001), lymphopenia (71.9% vs. 32.7%, p < 0.001), and anemia (53.5% vs. 35.1%, p < 0.001) in malaria patients. The MSS was significantly higher in malaria cases (median score: 4 [3; 5]) compared to non-malaria cases (median score: 1 [1; 2], p < 0.001). The MSS demonstrated excellent discriminatory ability, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.902 (95% CI 0.869-0.935). The calibration of the MSS was evaluated using the Hosmer-Lemeshow test (X
Indexed as
Identifiers
40676453What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.