Last Updated: 31/01/2025
A malaria heart disease sub-study: Carotid intima-media thickness
Objectives
By conducting ultrasound examinations, this project will examine if a malaria infection may affect the thickness of the arteries of the neck (carotid arteries). This examination has in prior studies been linked with subclinical heart disease and development of heart failure.
Several studies have demonstrated how malaria may affect the structure and function of the heart. In collaboration with Federal University of Acre in Brazil, 600 malaria cases and controls will be studied from a malaria-endemic area in the Amazon basin. In addition, this project will examine cardiac function measured by cardiac blood sample analyses and a conventional ultrasound examination of the heart. In this way, this will enable understanding if thickness of the carotid arteries relates to heart disease caused by malaria. The examination of the carotid arteries is simple and fast, and is more easily applied in environments with only limited health care facilities as compared to an ultrasound examination of the heart.
Feb 2021 — Jan 2023
$21,679