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Odaga, John, Sinclair, David, Lokong, Joseph A, Donegan, Sarah, Hopkins, Heidi and Garner, Paul 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0607-6941
(2014)
'Rapid diagnostic tests versus clinical diagnosis for managing people with fever in malaria endemic settings (Review)'. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 4, CD008998.
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Abstract
Background
In 2010, the World Health Organization recommended that all patients with suspected malaria are tested for malaria before treatment. In rural African settings light microscopy is often unavailable. Diagnosis has relied on detecting fever, and most people were given antimalarial drugs presumptively. Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) provide a point-of-care test that may improve management, particularly of people for whom the RDT excludes the diagnosis of malaria.
Objectives
To evaluate whether introducing RDTs into algorithms for diagnosing and treating people with fever improves health outcomes, reduces antimalarial prescribing, and is safe, compared to algorithms using clinical diagnosis.
Search methods
We searched the Cochrane Infectious Disease Group Specialized Register; CENTRAL (The Cochrane Library); MEDLINE; EMBASE; CINAHL; LILACS; and the metaRegister of Controlled Trials for eligible trials up to 10 January 2014. We contacted researchers in the field and reviewed the reference lists of all included trials to identify any additional trials.
Selection criteria
Individual or cluster randomized trials (RCTs) comparing RDT-supported algorithms and algorithms using clinical diagnosis alone for diagnosing and treating people with fever living in malaria-endemic settings.
Data collection and analysis
Two authors independently applied the inclusion criteria and extracted data. We combined data from individually and cluster RCTs using the generic inverse variance method. We presented all outcomes as risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and assessed the quality of evidence using the GRADE approach.
Main results
We included seven trials, enrolling 17,505 people with fever or reported history of fever in this review; two individually randomized trials and five cluster randomized trials. All trials were conducted in rural African settings.
In most trials the health workers diagnosing and treating malaria were nurses or clinical officers with less than one week of training in RDT supported diagnosis. Health worker prescribing adherence to RDT results was highly variable: the number of participants with a negative RDT result who received antimalarials ranged from 0% to 81%.
Overall, RDT supported diagnosis had little or no effect on the number of participants remaining unwell at four to seven days after treatment (6990 participants, five trials, low quality evidence); but using RDTs reduced prescribing of antimalarials by up to three-quarters (17,287 participants, seven trials, moderate quality evidence). As would be expected, the reduction in antimalarial prescriptions was highest where health workers adherence to the RDT result was high, and where the true prevalence of malaria was lower.
Using RDTs to support diagnosis did not have a consistent effect on the prescription of antibiotics, with some trials showing higher antibiotic prescribing and some showing lower prescribing in the RDT group (13,573 participants, five trials, very low quality evidence).
One trial reported malaria microscopy on all enrolled patients in an area of moderate endemicity, so we could compare the number of patients in the RDT and clinical diagnosis groups that actually had microscopy confirmed malaria infection but did not receive antimalarials. No difference was detected between the two diagnostic strategies (1280 participants, one trial, low quality evidence).
Authors' conclusions
Algorithms incorporating RDTs can substantially reduce antimalarial prescribing if health workers adhere to the test results. Introducing RDTs has not been shown to improve health outcomes for patients, but adherence to the test result does not seem to result in worse clinical outcomes than presumptive treatment.
Concentrating on improving the care of RDT negative patients could improve health outcomes in febrile children.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | This review is published as a Cochrane Review in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2014, Issue 4, CD008998. Cochrane Reviews are regularly updated as new evidence emerges and in response to comments and criticisms, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews should be consulted for the most recent version of the Review. |
| Subjects: | WB Practice of Medicine > Diagnosis > General Diagnosis > WB 141 General works WB Practice of Medicine > Diagnosis > General Diagnosis > WB 152 Chills. Fever WC Communicable Diseases > Tropical and Parasitic Diseases > WC 750 Malaria |
| Faculty: Department: | Clinical Sciences & International Health > Clinical Sciences Department |
| Digital Object Identifer (DOI): | https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008998.pub2 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | Martin Chapman |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Apr 2014 13:47 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Sep 2019 10:15 |
| URI: | https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/3669 |
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