Accuracy of rapid diagnostic test to diagnose malaria in children under 5 years of age, a meta-analysis

Objective: To assess the accuracy of the rapid diagnostic test for malaria diagnosis in children under 5 years of age. Methods: As of August 31, 2020, PubMed, Web of Science and Cochrane Library databases had been systemat-ically searched. Relevant data were extracted and meta-analysis was carried out. A random effects model was used for subgroup analysis. Results: According to the inclusion criteria, a total of 26 studies were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.92 (95% confidence interval 0.83 & minus;0.96) and 0.92 (0.86 & minus;0.95), the parasite-specific lactate dehydrogenase-based test were 0.96 (0.85 & minus;0.98) and 0.93 (0.86 & minus;0.95), the histi-dine-rich protein 2-based test were 0.94 (0.84 & minus;0.98) and 0.86 (0.77 & minus;0.91). Conclusions: This meta-analysis showed that rapid diagnostic test had good accuracy in diagnosing malaria in children under 5 years of age. And the diagnostic performance of parasite-specific lactate dehydrogenase test was better than that of the histidine-rich protein 2 test. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study evaluated the accuracy of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria in children under 5 years old, showing good overall performance with the lactate dehydrogenase-based test performing better than the histidine-rich protein 2-based test.